Nightshade
by dementadoom
Summary: After Leonardo is found severely injured and without any memory of the past few days, his brothers begin searching for who did this to him, and where they can be found. But what they uncover is a sinister conspiracy that threatens all their lives - and Leonardo may not be the last mutant taken.
1. Chapter 1

The first thing he felt was the rain. Ice-cold droplets were striking his face, and streaming down onto the hard concrete under him.

With a gasp, he rolled slowly onto his back, feeling as though the ground under him was shifting. His eyes fluttered open, only to shut again as more cold raindrops struck them. It took a few more minutes before he could squint them open again, taking in his surroundings.

Clouds. Rain. The sharp, dark outlines of two buildings rising overhead.

More rain was streaming over him now. It seeped into the grooves between his plastrons, streamed over his skin, pooled in the edges of his shell. He was vaguely aware that he was shivering, hard enough that his fingers were trembling against his side.

But somehow, that knowledge seemed oddly distant and hazy, as though he were looking at something across a far distance, through a thick fog. His mind felt as though it was stumbling and floating its way through his thoughts, sluggishly, as though it was disconnected from the rest of him. He knew that he ought to be thinking more clearly. More quickly. Something was wrong.

A faint groan came from his lips as he forced himself to twist onto his side. Then something happened — his right arm suddenly blazed with pain, as though someone had jammed a burning brand into his shoulder.

He gasped, and huddled forward, clutching the arm to his stomach, as though shielding it from something. For a moment the pain seemed to blast through the grey fog in his mind, allowing him to realize that something was seriously wrong with him. The arm seemed to be dangling uselessly at his side; no matter how he tried, he couldn't move it. A hot, pulsing pain was rising in every muscle of his shoulder, beating in time with his heart.

I need to get out of here, he thought wildly.

He wasn't sure why or how he knew this, only that he had to find a safe place. Another groan came from between his clenched teeth as he heaved himself to his feet, and took a hesitant step towards the street.

But the ground under him seemed to slip sideways, as though he were walking on a mattress. His fingers dug into the brick wall at his side, clinging to it as though it were the only thing keeping him from falling. Something hollow and metallic crashed into his left thigh, and it took him a moment to realize that it was only a trash can. Nothing dangerous… only a trash can…

Outside the alley, there were burning white lights that seemed to pierce his bleary eyes. For a moment he wondered if he should go out there at all, or simply find a place here to hide until the rain had passed…. no… no, he needed to get somewhere else. Somewhere less exposed.

As he rounded the corner, he clutched his throbbing arm to his side, and tried to force his stumbling mind to focus. The grey mist had settled back over his brain, and thoughts seemed to slip from him like the rainwater between his fingers.

He had to focus. He had to think. He had to make himself see what was happening…

His eyes drifted up to the street signs on the corner, and recognized one of them: Adams Street. He had noticed that name weeks ago — or at least he thought it was weeks ago — he wasn't entirely sure what day it was, or how long he had been lying in that alley… but if he followed the street, sooner or later he would find April's home…

He groaned again as he began plodding down the street, keeping as close to the building walls as he could. He needed to stay in the shadows — needed to stay quiet and unobtrusive — if he was going to make it there.

The icy rain was still pelting against his bare green skin, and every nerve felt like it was blazing whenever that happened. The pain in his shoulder was seeping down his side, as if the pain itself were something liquid and he was somehow bleeding it down into his ribs…

Bleeding… maybe something more than an arm injury had happened. Had he been stabbed? He touched his side gingerly with his good hand, and felt another flash of white-hot pain, along with the strange sensation that something inside him had splintered. When he raised his hand into the dim light of the streetlight, he saw that it was wet only with water. Not bleeding. He hadn't been stabbed — but something was horribly wrong…

Dark shapes were moving on the sidewalks. For a moment he wasn't sure if he was really seeing them. The ground under his feet still seemed to be shifting, making him stumble, and the shadows on the walls seemed to be writhing and twisting toward him.

Then the sound of other voices floated through the chilly air. Voices. He had to leave before they saw him.

Another shiver ran through him as he stumbled into the street, out of the bright circles of light cast by the streetlights. The shiny black street under his feet seemed to stretch into eternity, and as he raised his eyes again to the street signs, they seemed to fade into vague blurs of color. More rain streamed down his face, making him blink as he tried desperately to remember the address he was looking for…

He was so cold. His skin felt clammy and icy, except for the pulsing, jagged heat in his side and shoulder.

He took a long shuddering breath, which sent more splinters of pain through his side. The shapes on the sidewalks seemed to have not noticed him thus far — but if they did, he wasn't sure if he could defend himself. His right arm — his dominant arm — was worse than useless. And he couldn't think… couldn't anticipate… couldn't plan… his thoughts were like dead leaves blown by whatever wind came their way…

In the distance, the city lights shone like fallen stars. He needed to find just one of them.

The ground seemed to shift under him again. He stumbled forward, falling to one knee and huddling forwards. Either the earth itself was quivering, or he was suffering from dizzy spells, he thought with another shiver.

Something appeared through the darkness ahead of him — two pale lights, shining like the eyes of some nocturnal beast — coming closer — tearing through the night —


	2. Chapter 2

"Leonardo…"

The voice cut through the darkness, the icy numbness that had him in its grasp. He took a thin, rattling breath, and moved his head slightly towards the voice.

"Leonardo, please open your eyes!" April's voice pleaded.

He couldn't. Threads of white-hot pain were creeping through his veins, radiating out from his shoulder and side. And now there were other pains as well, blooming across his body like poisonous flowers. His breath caught in his throat as another pain shot through his torso, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to lie down, to sleep, to forget all of this.

His fingers and feet were the only parts of him that didn't feel as though they had been crushed, and that was only because the icy cold had seeped into his blood, numbing him until he barely felt the rain…

"Leonardo, you have to wake up — you have to!"

In the distance, in the dark, he could hear other voices rising above the sound of the falling rain. At first he couldn't quite make out the words, but slowly the voices became clearer, louder, despite the fog that still covered his brain.

"See, officer, there ain't no blood on the fender. She didn't hit nothin'." Casey's voice, attempting to sound casual.

"I saw it!" A woman's voice, rising wildly in pitch. "I saw its eyes — it was looking right at me —"

"A raccoon then," Casey interjected. "Probably you just interrupted some poor animal's dinner."

Something cold passed over his face, gently cupping his cheek. A hand.

"Leonardo," April whispered. "I'm going for a minute — just a minute — if you can hear me, then don't move or say anything!"

The sound of shoes scrambling across concrete, and the faint rattle of trash cans somewhere nearby. Leonardo felt himself slipping sideways, resting his cheek against the corrugated wet metal. His eyes fluttered, but he couldn't force himself to open them…

April was speaking in a falsely cheery voice.

"Officer, she might have dozed off at the wheel. Or — or maybe she saw something reflected in a puddle, and it just looked like a person in the road—"

"Not a person!" the woman said wildly. "It was… it was _green_. It didn't have hair or anything… it was sort of crouching in the road, like it was going to spring at me…"

"Maybe it was a dog," another voice said soothingly.

Leonardo felt as though frost had crusted his eyes shut. But he forced them open at last, and slowly turned his head to look around. More sharp, dark shapes rising to the cloudy skies… more drops of rain, made pale and shining from the light from the streetlamps. A small wall of trash cans had been placed beside him, keeping him in shadow, invisible to anyone passing by in the street beyond.

He crouched against the wall, pressing his good hand against the rough bricks. The shadows flickering on the wall above him seemed to be whispering, in soft voices that lulled his senses, but unnerved him as well…

"I have a whole family of raccoons who regularly raid my trash," April was saying brightly.

"I guess so," the unfamiliar man's voice said. "Ma'am, unless you can tell me where to find this — this green monster you say you saw, I'm going to have to wish you good night."

"But I saw it! I did see it!" the woman insisted.

"Good night, ma'am."

Leonardo felt himself drifting halfway out of consciousness, as the fading sound of engines filled the air. He wanted to sleep — wanted to leave the pain and the cold behind, wanted to stop struggling against his own sluggish mind. He let his body slither sideways against the wall, and exhaled deeply.

"Leo?" April's voice cut through the silence. "I hid him here after the car hit. She was too upset to notice. Casey, just look at him…"

"What could do this to a ninja?" Casey said, sounding both horrified and amazed.

"I don't know — Leo, you have to listen to me! Try to look me in the eye if you can."

Her hand slipped under his chin and tilted his head up towards her, making it easier for him to meet her eyes. Leonardo's eyes flicked up to her face, but he somehow couldn't make himself focus on her face. Her voice seemed to be coming from far away, as though he were hearing her from the end of a long echoing hallway. The sight of her seemed to slip and meander as his eyes wandered in place.

"What's wrong with him?" Casey said.

"I don't know. He looks like he's drugged, or maybe drunk — but we have to get him underground fast. Can you carry him?"

"You kidding? Carryin' him will be easy. Just let me get a grip on him and I'll have him back home in no time at all—"

A pair of rough, powerful hands gripped Leonardo's arms, heaving him up and dragging his legs back a standing position And then the blazing white pain was back, fiery needles slitting through his flesh, tearing a howl out of Leonardo's throat. He clawed at Casey without thought or reason, driven to pure animal instinct by the pain.

"Leo!" April gasped. "What's wrong?"

"Shoulder— hurts…" Leonardo wheezed, clutching at his shoulder with his left hand.

April's face creased with concern. She gently touched his throbbing shoulder with her cool, probing fingertips. This time, Leo was prepared for the pain, but a moan tore its way from his chest as white-hot needles pierced him like arrowheads. He shuddered against April's shoulder as she moved her hands down towards his side, clutching at her elbow with his good hand. It hurt — more than he could bear — but the pain seemed to clear some of the mist from hia brain — if only he could remember what was wrong with him, how he had gotten here…

"Get his other arm over your shoulders, Casey," she said, rising to her feet. "We have to get him to Splinter."


	3. Chapter 3

Leonardo was barely aware of the journey into the sewers, only of dark walls slipping by him and the water sloshing around his feet. Casey and April's voices seemed to echo in his head as they dragged him along, and occasionally he was able to raise his head enough to look where they were going. The whispering was still seeping out of the cracks between the sewer bricks, out of the dank hollow tunnels that opened on every side…

"Is it me or is he gettin' worse?" Casey said.

"Just keep — pulling him," April said breathlessly.

"I'm just sayin', he's practically asleep on his feet."

April's hand touched his face again, and he could feel her warm breath on his neck. "We're almost there, Leo," she whispered.

Then there was a blast of light that burned his eyes, and he cringed away from it without even thinking.

"Splinter!" April called. "We found him — we need you here, quickly!"

Something both rough and soft touched Leonardo's face, gently. He leaned his head into it.

"Where did you find him?" Splinter's soft voice said.

"He was in the street outside my store. I think — I think he walked there from somewhere. Splinter, there's something wrong with him. He just sat in the street and stared at a car as it ran him down. It was like he didn't even notice it was there."

"Quickly, place him on the couch," Splinter commanded. "April, contact his brothers. Tell them to come back immediately."

"I think his arm's all messed up too," Casey said loudly. "He wouldn't let me touch it."

Leonardo shivered. The throbbing, hot pain in his shoulder and side were getting worse, and now there was a throbbing pain starting behind his eyes. He wanted to sleep more than anything he had ever wanted — if he fell asleep, perhaps the pain would fade away… But in the back of his mind, something else told him that he couldn't rest just yet, and that things would be worse if he fell asleep now.

He tried to force his eyes open, despite the brightness of the lights. Splinter was hovering over him now, his furred face grave. He passed a hand over Leonardo's face, as he had done when his sons were young and suffering from some sickness.

"My son," he said quietly, "what have they done to you?"

Leonardo swallowed hard, feeling the shivers still running through his bones. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. It hurt just to try to think, as the thoughts whirled away and fluttered through his head, and the more he tried to catch them the harder it became. He wanted to tell Splinter what little he knew…. wanted to hear his sensei telling him it would be all right…

And then more voices came rushing in, three of them shouting all at the same time.

 _"Leo!"_

"What happened?"

 _"I'll kill 'em!"_

"Please, Raphael," Splinter said quietly. "That is not helpful."

"Let me see him," Donatello was saying urgently, leaping over the couch.

Leonardo flinched as his brother touched the right side of his face. Once again, the pain seemed to be dragging him closer to clarity, but then he couldn't feel or focus on anything else…

"Extensive bruising on his leg, head, side and arm," Donatello said slowly, a quaver passing through his voice. "I — I think his ribs are broken, Sensei. At least a few of them." He leaned down closer, staring down into Leonardo's eyes intently, with a pained expression in his own. "His eyes aren't — aren't focusing on anything. I think he's concussed…"

Suddenly Donatello was pushed aside, and Raphael's face appeared in front of Leonardo. He looked oddly blurry and hazy, but there was no mistaking the rage twisting his face.

"Was it the Foot again?" he demanded. "I'll find every last one of 'em — I'll tear them to shreds —"

"No—Raph—" Leonardo rasped.

Another wave of dizziness swelled over him, and the voice seemed to die in his throat. His fingers dug into the battered cushions, and he had to close his eyes as the room swam around him.

"Leo? _Leo?"_ Raph's voice rose in alarm.

"Raphael, Donatello," Splinter said in a tight voice. "Hold your brother's legs still. Michaelangelo, I will need your assistance."

That rough furred hand passed over Leonardo's brow again. Without thinking, he turned his face toward it, and for a moment he felt as though things were going to be all right.

When he had been a child — little more than a baby — he remembered once he had contracted a flu-like disease that had left him sickly, feverish and aching for days. In those days, he and his brothers had all slept in a single large bed that Splinter had salvaged, but for that time Leo had been alone lest his brothers catch the disease. He had lain in a small nest of worn blankets and pillows, shivering and sweating, miserably listening to his brothers going through their katas every day.

But Splinter had spent that week sitting by his side, holding his small hand. He had told him stories to keep his mind off his sickness, especially stories of Master Yoshi and the time he had spent as the man's pet. It was only years later that Leonardo had realized that Splinter had barely slept that week, since he hadn't left until the young turtle's fever had broken.

"I am sorry, my son," Splinter said quietly. "More sorry than you can know. Michaelangelo, now!"

And something in Leonardo's shoulder seemed to explode.

A shriek tore its way out of his throat, and his left hand flew out to claw at the right one. He could feel Splinter's clawed fingers and Michaelangelo's thicker ones locked around his elbow and wrist, and they were twisting — tearing — he felt as though every muscle in his shoulder was being violently ripped loose from his bones. Hot razor-sharp pain was streaming through his body, and he couldn't think, couldn't hear, couldn't stop the scream that was rising from his chest—

"Hold him still!" Splinter's voice rose. "Raphael, take his other hand! Donatello, keep him from thrashing!"

"I'm trying!" Donatello grunted.

Leonardo could vaguely feel his brother's arms clamped around his muscled thighs, but he couldn't stop himself from lashing out with his feet. Suddenly something seized his flailing left hand, and twisted it back against the back of the couch.

"I got you, Leo," Raph grunted, his face grim. "Just squeeze as hard as you can, okay? I can take it."

Leonardo took a harsh, rattling breath. He wanted to say something, but all he could do was dig his fingertips into the flesh of Raph's hand, trembling harder with every second.

"Once more, Michelangelo," Splinter ordered.

Leonardo stiffened as they began pulling on his arm again. His first wild thoughts were that Splinter and Michelangelo were tearing it off with their bare hands. He was vaguely aware of Raphael and Donatello pushing him down into the couch, shouting words he couldn't understand and staring down with wild, frightened eyes.

Then suddenly the hands released his arm, and it fell limply to the side of the couch. Leonardo took the deepest breath his painful ribs would allow. He still felt as though someone had packed hot coals into his shoulder, but the strange wrongness, the grating jagged feeling, had vanished.

"I believe we have done it," Splinter said, sounding exhausted. "His arm should be back in its socket."

"Can we never do that again?" Donatello said feebly.

Leonardo closed his eyes. He could feel sweat pouring down his face, and he was trembling harder than ever. Now that the pain had receded into a dull, thick throbbing in his shoulder, he could feel that grey haze starting to settle over his mind again, making it hard to focus.

"Michelangelo," Splinter said quietly. "Bring me the first-aid kit. There is still one task to be done."

His dark eyes were grave as he leaned down closer to Leonardo's face.

"Leonardo, what happened?"

"Can't — think — can't focus…" Leonardo whispered.

And that frightened him more than anything else. For as long as he could remember, Leonardo had been Splinter's best student because he could focus intently on what he needed. Even if he had struggled, he had still known that he could do it if he pushed himself hard enough, envisioned what needed to be done…

"Okay, get him upright," Donatello said somewhere behind him. "Mikey, give me the compression bandage."

Leonardo sagged against a solid, muscled arm that he barely recognized as Raphael's, and his head lolled forwards. He could feel Donnie doing something to his chest — something that made his side suddenly flare up — but the grey mist in his mind seemed to be seeping over everything, making his senses duller. For once, he welcomed it.

"You hang in there, Leo," Raph rasped. "I've gotcha…"

There was a final tug in front of his chest, and a faint squeezing sensation as if someone were hugging him firmly. Leonardo tried to look down to see what they had done, but his eyes didn't seem to focus properly…

"It's done," Donatello said. "Lower him back down."

Finally. Leonardo let out a sigh, which for once didn't seem to hurt his ribs. Hands were holding his uninjured arm and back, gently placing him on the couch cushions once again — and this time, he suspected he wouldn't be able to get up again.

"Leonardo, I need you to look at me," Donatello was saying. "Look at me, Leo. I need you to stay awake. I'm pretty sure you have a concussion — possibly a really bad one — and I know you really want to sleep right now, but — Leo, stay with me, stay with me!" A sharp slap, but not enough to penetrate the grey mist. "Stop it, Leo! Leo, if you fall asleep you might not wake up again. Do you hear me?"

But Leonardo couldn't make himself stay out of the darkness any longer. He sank into it, and felt nothing more.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm gonna kill them."

Raphael's sais were already in his hands, clutched so hard that his knuckles were white. For a moment, Donatello was afraid that his brother was going to start throwing them in their home, just to vent his rage.

"Kill who, Raphael?" Splinter said quietly.

 _"Them._ The Foot. The Purple Dragons. Whatever did this to him."

"Dude, you don't know that it was them —" Michelangelo began.

"Don't even start with me, Mikey," Raphael said, pointing one of his sais at his brother's face.

Splinter seized Raphael's wrist and forced it down.

"To your room, Raphael," he said.

The white-hot rage in Raphael's eyes seemed to somehow get even brighter. The muscles on his arms tightened like whipcords.

"Sensei, I—" he began.

"Your room," Splinter said with sudden sharpness. "I will come to speak with you in a moment."

For a moment, Donatello was sure that Raphael was going to defy Splinter for the first time in his life, and tear out into the rainy night in search of whatever had done this to Leo. His eyes were burning with rage — not the usual anger he struggled with on a daily basis, but something darker and sharper.

Then his shoulders slumped, and he walked into his bedroom in silence.

Splinter sighed, and Donatello realized belatedly that their sensei had been thinking the same thing he had. The old rat's eyes were full of tiredness.

"Michelangelo, Donatello," he said in a low voice. "You must look after your brother for the time being. I will see to Raphael. Make sure Leonardo is never unattended for a moment, and watch carefully for his waking."

"Yes, sensei," Donatello said quickly.

Splinter cast another glance at the still form on the couch, and Donatello thought he saw a glimmer of tears. Then he turned and slipped into Raphael's room, where a dark shadow was storming back and forth across the floor.

Michelangelo blinked hard, and for a moment Donatello thought he was on the verge of crying as well. But then his brother threw an arm over his face to block the enormous yawn that split his face.

"Sorry," he said miserably. "I didn't mean to — I mean, I'm not that tired."

"Yes, you are," Donatello said.

The truth was, they both were. The past two days had been spent roaming across rooftops and through back alleys, checking every shadow and corner where a mutant turtle might be hiding. The night before, they had roamed through the sewers' echoing corridors, bellowing Leonardo's name until they were hoarse. When the call had come from April, Donatello had been racking his exhausted brain for another place they could possibly look, without storming into a stronghold of the Foot without their most capable warrior on their side.

Mikey was doing his best to look like he was keeping it together, but Donatello could see the fatigue creeping into his face. The orange mask concealed the area around his eyes, but Donatello was fairly sure that if he took it off, there would be dark circles. And he looked rattled after Raph's outburst, as he often did when something truly bad happened and he couldn't even joke about it.

"I'll take first watch," Donatello said at last. "You need to get some sleep."

"Naw, man, I can handle it," Michelangelo said quickly.

"No, you can't. I've got some more work to do, so I might as well stay with Leo."

"But I—"

"I'll wake you up in a few hours, Mikey."

Michelangelo glanced over at Leonardo again, as if he weren't sure whether he should continue fighting Donatello on the issue.

"Okay," he said at last. "But I'm gonna get him a blanket first. He was out in the rain — in the cold — and I bet he was freezing his shell off."

"Good idea," Donatello said.

As Michelangelo vanished into Leonardo's room, Donatello slipped down to the couch where Leonardo was asleep. There had been only one other time when Donatello could remember seeing Leonardo so battered, and that was when the Foot Clan had nearly beaten him to death. They had almost lost him then, and now the unspoken fear that crept through all their hearts was that they might lose him now.

Grey-brown bruises mottled the right side of his body, including his injured shoulder, the side of his face, and a scrape that had torn through the wrappings on his right knee. His side looked the worst at first glance, a massive purplish contusion that looked almost as though he had been stabbed in the chest.

Donatello bent down for a closer look, and his brow crinkled. There were other, smaller injuries he hadn't noticed at first — bits of glass and gravel that were practically embedded in Leo's bruised flesh, and surrounded by little drips of dried blood that glued them in place.

And there was a small gash on Leo's injured arm that he hadn't noticed before. Probably it was partly because of the larger injuries that had needed his attention, but the gash was so thin and shallow that it was barely noticeable on Leonardo's dark green skin. It began with a puncture wound just below his shoulder, and swooped jaggedly down his bicep to end around his elbow. Even Leo probably hadn't noticed it, especially with his dislocated shoulder.

Donatello glanced at his brother's quiet face, and then gently probed at the injury with his fingertips. There was something in the wound that the rain hadn't quite washed away — something pale and milky.

"Mikey," he said, looking up as his brother swept into the room, his arms full of a sleeping bag. "Get me a pair of tweezers, some gauze and a swab."

"You want a pigeon at a time like this?"

"Swab, not squab," Donatello said, trying not to let his irritation seep through.

"Oh, those things. The ear-cleaning things?"

"Yes, whatever. Just get them for me!"

Michelangelo flung the sleeping blanket over Leonardo, vanished into Donatello's lab space, and came back a moment later with the items he had asked for.

"What are you doing?"

"Satisfying scientific curiosity," Donatello said, running the swab along the mysterious cut. Leonardo didn't even stir, and for a moment Donatello was grateful that his brother was unconscious. He'd have been in agony if he were awake. He dropped the swab into a plastic bag, feeling something more urgent than the need for sleep — the need to find out something that was puzzling him.

"And the tweezers?"

"Hold Leo's arm still for me, okay?" Donatello said, holding them up. "I need to extract the glass and gravel that got lodged in his skin."

"W—how did that happen?"

"If you ask me," Donatello said grimly, "I'd guess that he fell from somewhere very high up."

"Fell? But — but Leo's trained with us for years. He knows how to land, how to catch himself…"

"Yes, he does. Which raises the question of why he couldn't do it this time."


	5. Chapter 5

A few hours later Donatello sat back in his chair, and stretched his arms over his head. It was late — the glowing clock in the corner of his computer screen said it was almost two in the morning. But it felt even later than it was, because Donatello had barely slept in the last few days.

He was tempted to just let his head rest on the table for a few minutes, and just let his weary muscles rest. But he knew if he did that, he would be out like a light — and nobody would be watching after Leonardo.

Leonardo. His brother was still huddled on the couch, with an unzipped sleeping bag draped over him like a blanket, so that the only parts of him that were visible were his head, deck and shoulders.

Just be calm, Donatello told himself. Leo's vitals were still strong and seemed to be fairly stable. And he had reacted strongly when they had tried to deal with his dislocated arm — it had taken Raphael and Donatello both to hold him still while Splinter and Michelangelo forced his arm back into the proper position. That wasn't what a dying person did, was it?

But then again, he had fallen asleep right in front of them while Donatello had slapped and shouted at him to stay awake. And they couldn't seem to wake him now.

Donatello took a shaky breath. He wasn't sure if Leonardo was too exhausted to wake up, or if he had slipped into a coma. If it was the latter, he had no idea what they were going to do about it. He was the closest thing the Turtles had to a doctor available to them, and he knew mostly the basic treatments for battle wounds and some chemical curatives for more exotic problems. Handling a concussion victim was something he wasn't very experienced at. And if they ended up needing a real doctor…

Another bellow rose from behind the thick brick walls, drawing Donatello's attention away from Leonardo. He sighed. Raph had been raging for almost four hours now, and only Master Splinter's constant presence had kept him from tearing out of their home and killing the first enemy he saw. Preferably the Foot, and as many as possible.

I shouldn't have offered to take the first watch, Donatello thought, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He was starting to worry about what was going to happen when — not if — he fell asleep standing up.

With a sigh, he glanced at the swab he had taken from Leonardo's arm. It was sitting in a beaker beside his computer, covered in chemicals that almost glowed a cobalt blue. It would probably take hours more for him to uncover what exactly it was — possibly days — but he had a hunch that it was something worth doing…

His Shell-Cell suddenly beeped at him.

"Hi, Donnie," April's voice said in a low, subdued tone.

"Hi, April."

He hadn't seen her since she and Casey had dropped Leonardo off at the Turtles' home, and somehow the two of them had slipped away in all the turmoil that had followed.

"How is Leonardo?"

"He's still — unconscious," Donatello said hesitantly. "No sign of improvement yet."

"Is there anything more I can do?"

"Two things. One, I could really use some more medical supplies. Gauze, medical tape, bandages, a lot of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications. Leo will need all of it."

"I'll go right away. What else?"

"I need you to figure out what direction he was coming from when the — when the car hit him."

"I think it was — it was the west, I think."

"Thanks," Donatello said, trying not to let his dismal spirits show in his voice. "West" was a pretty vague direction to search in, especially when they had no idea what they were looking for, or where.

He stared down at the phone long after April had hung up, turning ideas over in his mind. Nothing seemed to fit. There was something profoundly… profoundly WRONG about the way this entire situation had played out, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. What had happened wasn't the Purple Dragons — of that he was sure, since they wouldn't have hesitated to beat a helpless, half-conscious Leonardo to death. They certainly wouldn't have left him injured but alive. But at the same time, something told him that it wasn't the Foot either. There was just something about this situation that didn't fit them either — Donatello suspected that they wouldn't have been eluded by a Turtle too drugged to avoid falling off a rooftop.

His eyes flickered over to the blue liquid, and the swab resting in it. Time would tell.

Another wave of fatigue rolled over him. With a sigh, Donatello stood up and stretched again as he walked through their living area. He would wake Mikey in another hour or so, and try to sleep through Raph's rage down the hall. If Leo recovered — if he recovered soon, and could tell them what happened to him, then they would probably be out and hunting their enemies by the following morning.

Then he heard a groan.

Leonardo's peaceful face had shifted into a pained grimace. Slowly his eyes opened, tracing across the darkened ceiling above him.

"Leo!" Donatello erupted, forgetting his fatigue. "Thank God!"

Leonardo blinked, looking confused.

"Donnie," he whispered hoarsely. "How did I get here?"

"April and Casey brought you in. April said that she saw you just crouching in the street, and that someone hit you with a car. Not very hard, fortunately, because you had plenty of injuries already. If they had hit you full speed, I don't know what we would have done." Donatello pulled a chair to the side of his battered brother, and peered down at Leonardo's battered face.

His brother's pupils seemed to be the same size, which was a good sign. But there was still something in his gaze that wasn't normal — that vagueness that seemed to wash over him whenever he wasn't in pain. It wasn't as intense as before, but it was still there.

Donatello felt something tick inside him at the thought. It happened whenever there was a question unanswered, or a problem to be solved — a desire to unravel the mystery until everything made sense.

"Water," Leonardo said raspily.

Donatello immediately rushed to the kitchen, and returned with a small cracked mug brimming with water. He slipped an arm under Leonardo's neck, trying to avoid touching his damaged shoulder, and guided the cup to his brother's lips.

Leonardo drank almost greedily, as if he had been lost in a desert and had just found an oasis. When the cup was empty, he collapsed back on the sofa arm, breathing hard.

"Everything hurts," he murmured.

"I'm not surprised. Splinter and Mikey had to put your arm back in its socket — that's hard to do to someone who isn't a ninja, but it was especially hard with you. You have at least two broken ribs, and your right side is so bruised that you almost look like a different person from this angle."

A tiny smile played across Leonardo's face.

"Where is Master Splinter?" he whispered.

"Dealing with Raph. Mikey's asleep right now."

Leonardo shifted uneasily, and winced.

"How long was I gone?" he murmured.

Donatello's eyes widened. "Leo… you were gone for two and a half days. Didn't you know that? We found your swords behind a dumpster on Marlborough Street, but no sign of where you were. We've been hunting all over for two days now — we were still doing it when April's call came in."

"Two and a half days," Leonardo said, incredulous.

"Where were you? You have to tell us where you were…"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Leonardo's eyes narrowed almost to slits. "I can't. I can't — I don't remember anything that happened."


	6. Chapter 6

"He can't remember anything?" Raphael said incredulously. "Nothin'? He's gone for almost three days and he can't tell us what happened?"

"Nothing," Donatello said. "He says the last thing he remembers was Michelangelo skateboarding over his leg when he was trying to read. After that, there's just… nothing. He doesn't even seem to remember how he got here, or about April and Casey bringing him down."

Splinter seemed to be lost in thought, stroking his furry chin.

"How is he now?" he said at last.

"Resting again. He sort of drifted off just after you came in — and I'm not sure if I should wake him or not."

"Let him rest. Sleep can be a great aid to the healing of the body. But as for his mind…"

"It could be traumatic amnesia," Donatello said in a low voice. "He's certainly got the 'trauma' part down. As for the amnesia — I don't know. It could last a day, a month, or he might never remember what happened."

"That ain't good enough," Raphael snapped.

"Well, I can't _make_ him remember."

Raphael felt a snarl rising in his throat like a lump of hot vomit, but he forced it back down. Instead he stalked back to his bedroom, and flung himself in his hammock.

He could feel the anger welling up inside him like a volcano about to erupt. When Donatello had called them out with news that Leonardo had woken — even just briefly — Raphael thought that he had exhausted the rage already. He had spent the last hour — or two, or four, or however long it had been — venting in front of Splinter, as if he were lancing some infected wound that had been festering for a long time. Just before Don had called him, he had gone silent for the first time in hours, breathing hard and shaking.

But now it was back, as fresh and hot as spilled blood. And he was too tired to fight it back now.

Anger for him wasn't like it was for Leo or Donnie, something that happened in the head — something that could be controlled if he just tried hard enough or meditated long enough. It was a primal, violent thing that seemed to seep into his very blood. He had learned at a very young age that it was something the others didn't seem to have.

He rolled over and buried his face in his beaten-down pillow. It wasn't Don's fault. He knew his brother was doing what he could for Leonardo; his haggard face showed it.

It wasn't Splinter's fault either. Raphael knew that he had been right when he told his son why he wasn't letting them leave — right now they were all exhausted from two days of ceaseless searching. He could feel himself shaking with the tiredness, as much as from the anger.

"You want vengeance, Raphael," Splinter had said, in his usual quiet voice. "I know what it is to yearn for revenge. But you must not do so in the heat of your anger, when your body is tired and your mind is focused on nothing else. You would endanger yourself and your brothers needlessly, for your fighting would be sluggish and your thoughts compromised."

He knew Splinter was right. But it just didn't _feel_ right. The only thing that would feel right was carving his way through whoever had done this to his brother.

With a groan, Raphael curled his knees up against his chest, trying to breathe without fanning the flames inside him. It was going to be a long, long night. And day. Again.

Michelangelo woke with a start, and for a moment he couldn't remember why he felt so anxious. He glanced over at the luminous clock beside his pillow, and saw that it was almost four in the afternoon. He had slept through the entire day.

Then it all came flooding back — Leonardo. Spending the whole day scuttling through alleys and over rooftops full of pigeons and grime. Rain, rattling down on his shell. Raphael's rough voice scraping his ears. A call from April, saying that Leo had been found.

And then coming back to find Leonardo bruised, battered and barely conscious. His eyes had been open, but Michelangelo could tell immediately that he didn't really see anything around him. Not until Master Splinter had touched his shoulder, anyway — then he had started screaming and thrashing around, until Don and Raph had forced him to hold still. Michelangelo flinched as he thought about the click of Leonardo's arm finally getting back into the socket. That had been horrible. He still felt a little queasy thinking about it.

The concrete floor was cold under his feet as he slipped out into the main part of the lair. Sunlight was streaming down the tiered walls, and glimmering on the greenish water in the middle of the room. Cables were strung through the room like garlands, and a cluster of TV screens were playing in the corner, where they flickered silently with images of the news.

Michelangelo yawned, and stretched. "Donnie?" he called out in a scratchy voice. "Hello?"

"Stop being so loud," a faint voice said.

Michelangelo stopped.

First he saw Leonardo, sprawled on the couch near the silent televisions. He looked even worse than he had the night before now that his injuries had fully settled, with dark bruises mottling his face and shoulder,. There was a pallor under his green skin that made him look sickly. His injured arm was hanging down to the floor, his knuckles brushing the rug.

But he hadn't been the one who had spoken, Mikey was sure. His eyes were still firmly closed. Under the sleeping bag, his plastron was barely rising and falling with his breath.

Then Michelangelo saw who had actually spoken. On the other side of the couch was a thin mattress, and Donatello was lying on his side with a ratty quilt spread over him. He looked even more tired than he had the night before. His eyes were almost closed, just open enough that his brother could see he was awake.

"How is he?" Michelangelo said hesitantly.

Donatello flinched, and stretched his arms over his head.

"He's breathing. His vitals were still steady as of a few hours ago. He woke up last night for about five minutes, and he seemed pretty clear-headed compared to when he came in."

"I thought you said he hit his head."

"I did say that, but…" Donatello sat up, and a strange look came over his face. He eased his fingers under Leonardo's fallen arm, and painstakingly lifted it back to rest on his chest.

"But?" Michelangelo said.

"I'm not so sure now. I'll know later on…"

Donatello's voice trailed off. Michelangelo waited patiently for him to finish his sentence, but his brother seemed very involved in tucking the edges of the sleeping bag around Leonardo's shell.

"Dude," he said quietly, "Do you think he's gonna be okay?"

"He survived an attack from the Foot before," Donatello said in a low voice. "If he could bounce back from that, I'm sure he—if there's nothing unexpected, that is."

There was a faint quaver in his voice that Michelangelo caught — something that Don wasn't telling him. But before he could say another word, Splinter appeared almost silently in their midst, his eyes fixed on Leonardo. It might have been Michelangelo's imagination, but he thought the fur around Splinter's eyes looked a little damp. He sat down beside Leonardo, and placed his hand on Leonardo's bruised one.

"Michelangelo," he said quietly, "you should go wake Raphael. The two of you must leave immediately, and find who has done this. But stay together. Under no circumstances part from each other. Until we know who has done this, no one goes anywhere alone."


	7. Chapter 7

Rain pelted the roof of the Battleshell, sounding like bullets ricocheting off the armored steel. The raindrops also rattled Raphael's nerves, making him grip the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. They streamed down the windows faster than the wipers could move.

Michelangelo had been unusually silent throughout the drive, and that was a relief to his brother. Usually he would have been prattling about what they were doing, cracking jokes that Raphael rarely found funny. But he had barely said a word since they left home, sunk in his own thoughts. And Raphael suspected that most of them were similar to his own — though probably a lot less violent. Thoughts about the battered figure lying on their couch, and the question of where he had been for those two days.

"Traumatic amnesia," Don had called it. Raph's fingers tightened around the steering wheel, as the thought crept into his head that they might never find out who took Leo. Or worse, they might find out too late.

Night had been falling as they left. The sky was awash in thick grey clouds that blotted out the stars and moon.

Raphael twisted the wheel, swerving sharply onto a side street. He had fallen asleep without meaning to, and the first thing that had woken him was Mikey poking him with a stick, saying that Splinter was ordering them out to look for clues. The uneasy rest had dulled the edge of his rage. It was still there, like a half-burned coal glowing in his gut, but he was able to focus on something else.

"It's right here," Mikey said suddenly.

"What?"

"This is where we found Leo's swords."

Raphael braked hard, nearly flinging Michelangelo forward into the windshield.

"How do you remember?" he said brusquely. "I ain't even checked the street yet."

"I remember," Michelangelo said with an air of wounded dignity, "cuz right before we found Leo's swords, there was a restaurant with a big glowing bull in front of it, and I said-"

"— that you were hungry, and could we stop for food?" Raphael finished, sighing. "Right. Trust you to remember _that_ and not something like a street name."

He turned sharply into the alley, just past the sign with the glowing bull.

"All right," he said, turning off the engine. "Get your shell out there, and start looking for clues."

"Including the ones that probably washed away in the rain?"

"'Specially those."

The rain struck Raphael like a slap as he stepped out, streaming over his scalp and down into his eyes. He shook his head, irritated, and raised his flashlight. The alley was mostly just a pit of blackness without it, but there still might be something here that they missed the first time — when they were searching for Leonardo, not for some idea of what had literally beaten him into the ground.

He slowly swept the beam of light across the glistening ground, taking in every object that it saw. The dumpster was the place where they had found his swords, leaning against the wall in a tidy, almost respectful way. A broken whisky bottle. A discarded, half-eaten carton of Chinese food. A ripped T-shirt with a cartoon kangaroo on it.

Raphael snorted.

"Found anything?" he asked.

Michelangelo was crouching beside the dumpster, poking at a pike of garbage.

"One thing," Mikey said loudly.

"If you say food, I'm gonna-"

"Oh, I wish. But it's something I don't know about."

He lifted something small and glittering into the beam of light, and Raphael squinted at it. He wasn't sure what it was either — something like a long metal dart, with odd spidery legs on the sides, and something thin and glinting and glassy on the end.

"That ain't some junkie's needle," Raphael said, moving closer. "Don't poke yourself with the pointy parts. You don't know where it's been."

"I wish Don were here," Mikey said. "He'd probably know exactly what it is."

"He's probably comatose himself," Raphael said, feeling a bitterness welling up in his throat. "According to Master Splinter, he didn't sleep for most of the night."

Hot rage was welling up inside him again, and suddenly he wanted nothing so much as to whip out his sais and fling them straight at the next thing that moved. With a growl, he turned back to the Battleshell, and kicked it as hard as he could.

* * *

Michelangelo gingerly opened the plastic bag with his left hand, and dropped the dart-syringe-thingy inside. It looked like a spidery robot to him, and he didn't entirely trust it to not start walking around and shooting lasers at him when his shell was turned. That was the sort of thing that happened to him and his brothers. Maybe they had done something really bad in a previous life, and their karma was to be reborn as outcasts who were constantly being attacked by aliens, thugs and robotic chewing machines. Probably not, but it would explain a lot.

The Battleshell shivered again. Michelangelo flinched as he slipped the bag into one of the compartments Donnie had installed. Raph had started whaling on their armored car just as Mikey had gotten inside it, without a word of warning.

Now was probably not a good time to ruffle Raph's feathers, Michelangelo decided. He'd just sit in the Battleshell and wait for his brother to wear himself out, although the way he had been acting lately, that could take awhile.

He sat back in his seat and yawned widely, wishing he had had a few more hours of sleep before they left home. And some food. He knew that he shouldn't be hungry when his brother was still beaten and unconscious at home, but he had barely eaten anything for the past few days. His stomach felt shriveled up.

Then something caught his eye in the end of the alley. Something flickered in the darkness.

Something moved.

For a moment he thought that it might just be the rain falling. But the rain was falling straight down, and that movement had been from side to side — something flapping in the wind, like a flag or a piece of cloth.

Michelangelo's first impulse was to just leap out of the Battleshell and charge straight at the end of the alley. But he knew that whoever it was would melt away into the storm, and he wouldn't find them then. Instead, he looked over at Raphael and inched over to the side door.

"Hey, bro," he called. "Are you done with that yet? 'Cause Donnie's not going to be happy with you when he sees what you're doing to our paint job."

"Get lost, Mikey," Raphael grunted.

Michelangelo slipped back out into the cold, driving rain, keeping his motions casual and loose. If the person lurking out there thought he was just getting out to annoy Raph, they wouldn't think he was about to charge at them. They wouldn't realize what he was doing until it was too late.

Raphael was standing there, panting heavily, his bruised fists raised in front of him like a prizefighter.

"I said leave me alone," he said loudly.

"I'm not bothering you, bro," Michelangelo said in the most casual voice he could manage. But before Raphael could say another word, he swooped in closer and breathed, "Somebody's watching us. Just keep hitting the Battleshell and don't move until I do."

Raphael stiffened, his eyes widening, and for one moment Michelangelo thought that his brother was going to launch himself into the end of the alley, fists and sais swinging and spinning. But instead he let out a dull road, and hammered his fist into the armored door in front of him.

Michelangelo pretended to stagger back a little, but at an angle that allowed him to see the spot where the cloth had been flapping. It was still there — and now he could see something else, a faint glint of glass or metal. Whoever it was, they had come a little closer, which meant they had bought Michelangelo's casual act.

"On the count of three," Michelangelo whispered. "When I say 'when,' dude, you—"

 _"When!"_ Raphael roared.

He surged past Michelangelo like a blast of wind, his sais blazing streams of silver in the faint light. He was at the end of the alley before Michelangelo could do more than turn around, and was racing into the dark street beyond.

"Raph, wait—" Michelangelo howled, even though he knew that waiting was the last thing they should do now, since their quarry knew that they were onto him.

He plunged ahead, only a few steps behind his brother as they raced down the slippery sidewalk. There was something moving ahead of them — a pair of racing legs, a flutter of dark fabric — but Michelangelo couldn't see clearly what it was or whether they were catching up to it—

Then something silver flashed through the air, flickering right past Michelangelo's eye. He flinched away from it automatically, and something snagged on the tails of his mask. Suddenly he was off balance, his feet slipping out from under him, and his shoulder smashing into a brick wall.

He saw Raph falter, glancing back over his shoulder at him. He wanted to tell his brother to keep running, to get that shadowy figure before it had a chance to escape.

But then he saw something silvery flying under a streetlight, aimed directly at Raphael. And with his head turned towards Michelangelo, he couldn't see it coming.

Michelangelo lunged forward with a loud inarticulate cry, throwing his brother off-balance and knocking him against a nearby mailbox. But it wasn't enough to throw him out of the way, as the silver object arced towards them like a steel mosquito.

"Mikey, what is— _ow!"_ Raphael yelped.

He slapped a hand against his upper chest, as if something had stung him. Something metallic clattered to the ground.

"Are you all right, dude?" Michelangelo panted.

"Something hit me," Raphael said, sounding enraged.

He turned back to the place where their quarry had been a few minutes before. But now the street was empty, except for the ghostly streetlights hovering over their heads.

Still gasping for breath, Michelangelo aimed his flashlight at the ground. Another one of the metallic darts was lying at their feet.


	8. Chapter 8

"I got everything you asked for," April said, upending the paper bag. Small cardboard boxes and white bottles spilled out onto the tabletop. "Anti-inflammatories, gauze, tape — all of it. I could only get over-the-counter stuff, though. I'd need a doctor to get anything stronger."

"This ought to be fine," Donatello said, tearing open a box of gauze. "You came just in time. I was just thinking that his bandages needed to be changed."

April cast a hesitant glance over at Leonardo.

"How—how is he doing?"

"About the same, I think. Master Splinter says to let him sleep for as long as he needs, but I'd feel better if I knew he could wake up."

"Speaking of waking up," April said, sliding into a chair opposite him. "You look terrible, Donnie."

"Thank you."

"You know what I mean." April ran her fingers through her messy red hair. Her pale skin looked even paler than usual, and dark rings had formed under her green eyes.

Donatello knew what she meant, because he suspected that in his own reptilian way, he looked even worse. His hands shook slightly as he began cutting the gauze into small patches, gathered them and the tape into his hands, and carried them over to Leonardo.

Trying to be as gentle as he could, he peeled the patches of gauze from where he had placed them on Leonardo's various cuts and abrasions. Most of them had scabbed over, and Donatello knew from personal experience that if Leonardo didn't take a dramatic turn for the worse, he probably wouldn't show any exterior sign of injury in just a few days. He had always been a fast healer, which was handy when one was learning ninjutsu.

But in the meantime… Donatello dabbed the tiny gashes and scrapes on Leonardo's shoulder, leg and face with a tiny rag soaked in rubbing alcohol, silently praying that his brother would show some kind of reaction. But Leonardo stayed silent and still.

"You're pretty good at this," April said, sitting on the arm of the couch.

"Someone has to be," Donatello said, tearing a strip of tape and carefully pressing it on Leonardo's shoulder. "When Master Splinter was teaching us ninjutsu, we got hurt. Not on purpose, but you can't teach people to use weapons without them getting hurt at least some of the time. Can you pass me more gauze?"

She passed him the white, soft roll, and Donatello carefully tore off another chunk and taped it over a gash in Leonardo's forearm. Another strip of tape, another bandage in place. Rinse and repeat. Occasionally he called on April to help him hold a bandage in place, but for the most part he remained silent as he did his work. His hands were shaking more than ever, but whether it was from fatigue or emotion, Donatello wasn't sure.

Once he had set the gauze aside, he briefly pulled the sleeping bag down Leonardo's body, and checked to make sure the compression bandage was still where it should be. Finally, Donatello pressed his middle finger to the inside of Leonardo's wrist, and was rewarded with a faint, steady heartbeat. There was something very comforting about that sensation. It was a sign that his brother was still alive, and wasn't currently fighting to live.

Then he saw something that hadn't been there before: a faint tension in the green skin over Leonardo's eyes, as though his brother was about to furrow his brow.

"Leo?" he said quickly. "Leo, do you hear me?"

Nothing changed outwardly, but Donatello thought that he heard a catch in Leonardo's breath.

"What is it? Is he waking up?" April said quickly, her fingers digging into Donatello's shoulder.

"I don't — I don't know," Donatello said, his own fingers tightening around Leonardo's wrist. "Leo, if you can hear me, give some kind of sign…"

He watched his brother's face for a moment, the eyes moving slightly under their lids. But there was no more than a faint shadow over Leonardo's eyes, and the tension above his eyes slipped away.

Maybe it was all in my head, Donatello thought, sinking against the arm of the couch. He had barely slept all night — just a few hours before Mikey had woken him up — and he could feel fatigue buzzing in his blood like so many bees. Sooner or later, he was going to crash, and he just hoped he was poised over something soft when that happened. Maybe when Raph and Mikey came back…

The sound of heavy footsteps rang out in the hall outside, and Donatello heard the loud grinding sound of their outer door opening. He straightened up, feeling a knot of anxiety forming in his stomach.

Raphael's voice rang out loudly through their home.

"—believe they shook us off. What kinda ninjas are we?"

"The kind that screw up a lot, dude," Michelangelo responded.

Raphael took a swipe at his brother's head.

"Hey, guys," Donatello said, trying to force his face into a smile. His muscles felt frozen in an anxious grimace. "How did you do?"

"Lousy," Raphael ground out, collapsing on a chair and staring sullenly into the glimmering greenish water at the heart of their home.

Master Splinter appeared in the doorway of his room, clutching his walking stick.

"Did you find any evidence of what may have happened to Leonardo?" he said quietly.

"We found three," Michelangelo said, holding a pair of plastic bags over his head. "I found this one next to the dumpster where we found Leo's swords. It's some sort of robot—spider—needle-thingy."

"Let me see that," Donatello said quickly, setting aside the gauze and tape.

The item in the bag wasn't like anything he had seen before. At first glance it looked like a silver dart, with a gleam of glass running down its side. Small steel legs sprang out of its end, with pointed pincers that Donatello suspected were meant to grip flesh. He turned it over in his hands carefully, making sure that his hands never touched the tip. If it was what had made that strange wound in Leonardo's arm, it might be more dangerous than his brothers had ever realized…

"We got two more of 'em, if you care that much," Raphael said darkly. "Someone took potshots at us when we tried to catch 'em."

"Who?" Splinter said sharply.

"We didn't see them clearly. It could have been anyone," Raphael said, his chin sinking down to his chest.

Donatello looked up sharply.

"This is some kind of autoinjector," he said, holding up the silvery device. "And until I can analyze the contents — Raph, tell me exactly where those things were thrown. Did it hit you? Did it hit you anywhere?"

"Yes," Raphael said brusquely.

"Where?"

"Right here," Raphael said, pointing to his upper left chest.

There was a small, deep scratch that ran from the edge of his throat to the middle of his chest. Donatello winced as he bent down to examine the spot.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Michelangelo said, concern lacing his voice.

"I think so. The injector didn't penetrate the plastron, so it didn't inject him with anything. But just to be sure — Raph, you go wash that area as thoroughly as you can. If you see anything odd about it, tell me." Donatello looked back at his other brother. "What about you, Mikey?"

"They tried to hit me in the face, but they missed." Michelangelo flipped the tails of his mask over his shoulder, revealing a small ragged hole.

Relief flooded through Donatello, momentarily turning his knees to water. He sank on the edge of the couch, taking deep breaths to keep his head from swimming. He knew that the news that someone was following his brothers should concern him deeply, but for the moment he was just grateful that they had escaped without injury.

 _I can't keep going like this much longer,_ he thought. His muscles felt like they were turning to jelly, and the room was starting to go fuzzy around the edges. He could feel Splinter's gaze on him, and knew what his rat master was thinking. He needed sleep. Everyone else had been rested, but not him. Still, he needed to finish those tests…

A faint beeping noise came from the laboratory area, shattering Donatello's thoughts of his bed. He staggered slightly as he ran up the ramp and into the darkened room, where the swab was still sitting in its beaker. But now the liquid surrounding it had turned a deep gray instead of its previous blue.

"I thought so," he said quietly.

"Thought what?" Raphael called.

Donatello carefully lifted the beaker, and held it out so the others could see it clearly.

"I found a trace of something in one of Leo's injuries," he said. "Some kind of fluid. I've been running tests on it for most of the night, and now — I just finished running the last one. It's a toxin. Leo was poisoned."


	9. Chapter 9

_"Poisoned?"_

Raphael's voice was loud enough to rattle the stones of their home; if Donatello hadn't known better, he would have thought that dust would come cascading down at the sound. He winced and glanced swiftly at Leonardo, but their brother didn't seem to have heard it.

"Yes, poisoned," he said in a low voice. "Someone either scratched him with a poisoned blade, or they injected the poison into his system. I think it's the latter. The injury on his arm looks like an injection site, but Leonardo must have known what they were doing to him, because the needle was ripped downwards and out, as if someone grabbed it and tried to yank it out. That's where that long scratch comes from."

A growl seeped out of Raphael's throat. He began to stalk back and forth again.

"Is he — is he gonna — I mean, will he — I mean, he can't—" Michelangelo began to stammer.

Donatello swallowed hard, trying not to give in to the pleading look in his little brother's eyes. He didn't know enough about the toxin to be able to say anything definitively — all he knew is that it was highly dangerous. He lifted the beaker and stared into the grey liquid, as if searching for an answer there.

"I don't think he will," he said at last.

He forced himself not to feel better at the relief in Michelangelo and Splinter's eyes.

"From the little I got out of the wound, it's highly concentrated, and potentially lethal in higher concentrations. I — I can't say for certain, not without studying the original substance instead of just something I swabbed out of a cut. But it's toxic enough that if Leonardo were going to die from it, he would probably already have done so. He'd have been dead long before he fell off that rooftop or walked in front of a car."

"But why did they inject him with poison then?" Michelangelo said.

"Think, Mikey. I said I didn't think he was going to die," Donatello said, a hint of strain coming into his voice. "I didn't say they weren't trying to kill him. If he pulled out that needle like I think he did, then he probably only got part of the dose that they intended to give him. They tried to give him just enough to be debilitating and make him very sick, but not enough to kill."

An icy silence settled over the room. Donatello felt his eyes drifting back to Leonardo once again, and knew that everyone else in the room was looking the same way. His stomach twisted at the thought of what Leonardo had been going through, from what little they had been able to learn. Something worse might be lurking in the shadows of those unknown days and nights — and he was beginning to wonder if he even wanted to know the truth.

As if feeling their gazes, Leonardo's hand twitched slightly against the coverlet, and a faint twist of pain touched his features.

Raphael's face contorted, and he lashed out at the practice dummy hanging from the ceiling.

Splinter immediately went to Leonardo, and rested one furred hand on the turtle's injured one. Careful not to push aside any of the scraps of gauze taped to his arm, Splinter closed his fingers around those of his eldest son.

"Why do you think that the poison will not be fatal, if it is so potent?" he said in a quiet, measured voice.

"I — I'm just guessing. It's not really my area of expertise," Donatello said. A wave of something like nausea swept over him, and he had to grip the edge of his desk to keep from falling out of his chair. "His vitals have been steady all night, rather than getting worse. And I — I think that he's been sleeping so long because he's getting the poison out of his system. He's fighting it."

He carefully set the beaker beside his computer. He didn't trust his hands not to shake hard enough to drop it.

"To be honest," he said at last, "I suspected it might be poison as far back as last night. I just didn't want to say anything about it."

"And why not?" Raphael growled.

"Because I didn't want everyone to get even more upset if it turned out it was just a concussion after all," Donatello said defensively.

"My poor son," Splinter said, so softly that it was barely audible. He looked down at Leonardo's bruised face, still silent and unmoving.

"So you're saying — he didn't hit his head?" Michelangelo said slowly.

"No, he didn't — or if he did, it wasn't hard enough to cause that much confusion. I can't be sure without more study, but I think his confusion was caused by the poison in his system. He was injured and cold and exhausted and sick, and something had to give."

A heavy silence settled over the room.

Donatello sank back in his chair again, as another wave of dizziness struck him like a slap to the face. His hand was trembling hard enough that he he had to clench it into a fist to keep it from betraying how deeply, down-to-the-bone tired he really felt. This wasn't any time for him to be thinking about his own tiredness, he thought, trying to force himself to stand up. There were more tests he could run, now that he knew that it was a toxin he was examining…

"Donnie, are you all right?" April's voice said, seeming to come from far away.

"I'm fine. Just a little woozy," Donatello said hazily.

"No, you are not," Splinter said, seeming to appear beside Donatello as if out of thin air. "You have cared well for the health of Leonardo's body, Donatello. But you have neglected your own."

"Sensei, I—"

"You cannot help Leonardo if you yourself are sickened by lack of sleep. You said yourself, his heart beats steadily and strongly. He is fighting his own battle in his own way, and I believe completely that he will be triumphant."

"But if I could make some kind of counteragent—" Donatello said feebly.

"Can you trust your own judgement when you are too exhausted to stand?" Splinter countered.

Donatello opened his mouth, but couldn't find words. Instead he groaned and huddled forward in his chair, resting his head on his trembling hands. He knew Splinter was right — and he was tired — so horribly, horribly tired, as he never had been in his whole life —

"Mikey, get Donnie's mattress over there," Raphael said loudly.

Donatello could feel a dark curtain crashing over his mind as he staggered out of his chair, and collapsed onto the waiting mattress. The world around him began to fade into blackness, and the springy surface under his face felt warm and soft. "Temme if anythin' changes," he mumbled, as his eyes seemed to close of their own accord.


	10. Chapter 10

He woke slowly, drifting up from the dreamless deeps of a slumber that had seemed to go on forever. He didn't really want to wake up at all; in the corners of his memory, he dimly recalled white-hot needles of pain, and the piercing cold of autumn rain. Nothing more precise than that, but it was enough to make him want to sleep.

So when his eyes opened, it was reluctant. The light burned them, forcing him to turn his face away, towards a solid wall of worn, upholstered padding that smelled vaguely of turtles.

"Leo, you awake?" a familiar voice said.

"Raph?" Leonardo said faintly.

When he forced himself to look back, a blurred green shape was leaning over him. Something warm touched his shoulder.

"You _are_ awake. Stay with me, Leo."

"Stay with — what do you mean?" Leonardo whispered.

"Don't fall asleep again. You've been sleeping like you're waiting for a handsome prince to come along."

"I have?"

Raph's face was slowly swimming into focus; Leonardo could see a long red blotch over where his eyes should be, and the outline of his facial features. He blinked harder, trying to make his eyes focus.

"Yeah, you have," Raph said, sitting on the edge of the couch. "You don't remember that either, huh?"

"What don't I—"

His voice trailed off as his thoughts automatically flew to the last thing he remembered — Mikey annoying him with his skateboard, until he lost patience and left the lair. Some cool air and a run on nearby rooftops would clear his head, help balance his mind again.

And after that… nothing. He didn't even remember falling asleep. But there was something there — or had been, he felt. It was nothing but a stretch of emptiness now, too foggy for him to remember more than a fleeting sensation or a wordless sound. The harder he tried to remember what had been there, the more elusive it became, blowing away like dead leaves in the wind.

"Don't you fade out again," Raph said warningly.

"I'm not, I just—I can't remember how—" Leo took a deep breath. "How long?"

"Three days now. You were missin' for two of 'em."

"Missing?"

"Missing, as in lost. We were lookin' for you for days. We were hopin' you could tell us where you were, but you ain't exactly been talkative since we got you back."

Leonardo pressed his hand against the couch he was lying on, only to feel sharp, flaming pain searing in the socket of his shoulder, and the muscles of his arm suddenly weakening and trembling in response.

"Don't use that arm!" Raph said, seizing his wrist. "You dislocated it."

"How—"

"And before you ask how, we don't know. Don thinks you fell off a building or something, 'cause you also had glass and bits of gravel stuck in your skin. You broke a couple of ribs too."

Leonardo's brow furrowed at that news. Carefully, trying not to jostle any of his injuries, he slipped his left hand over the throbbing pain in his shoulder, the tightly-wrapped ache in his side, and the many smaller spots that twinged in his face and upper arm. There were a large number of them, and they seemed to flare to life at his touch, but he couldn't resist finding them all.

This made no sense. How could he have forgotten something that had left him in this state? He vividly remembered other times he had been hurt, especially that far worse time when the Foot Elite and the Shredder had beaten him nearly to death and left him battered and bleeding on April's floor. He remembered it all with painful vividity, even with his mind now blurry and only half-focused.

So why didn't he remember what had happened this time?

Leonardo looped his good arm over the back of the sofa, and grunted softly as he began heaving himself up into a sitting position. His side protested, spreading thin fingers of burning heat across his stomach and chest, but he forced himself to keep moving.

"Leo, hold on there!" Raph said.

Leo suddenly felt a pair of arms encircling him from behind, moving him almost effortlessly upright. He let out a sigh of relief as his shell touched the back of the sofa, allowing him to finally relax again.

Raph was sitting beside him, one of his legs curled up against his chest and the other one stretched out in front of him. Leonardo could see him clearly enough now that he could see the concern etched in his brother's face, the faint furrow between his eyes that crinkled his red mask. Usually that indicated that Raph was angry, and about to vent his feelings on some inanimate object, but this time he seemed more worried.

"There's one other thing," Raph said. "Don thinks you were poisoned."

"Poisoned?"

"With some kind of dart thing. He thinks they were tryin' to make you sick enough that you wouldn't be able to get away, but you pulled it out before you could get all the poison."

Leonardo allowed his head to fall back on the couch, and let his eyes close.

"What else does Don say?" he asked, almost dreading the answer.

"Nothin'. He fell asleep right after that. He wanted me to wake him up if there was any change in your condition, but I'm not doin' that. He was awake for those three days, lookin' high and low for you and then doing tests on that poison. He'll sleep till he wakes up, as far as I'm concerned."

"Good call," Leo said.

Now that he was sitting upright, he could see something over by Don's work space — a small mattress lying on the floor, and a olive-green-skinned figure huddled into itself until nothing but its shell and feet could be seen. He felt a sudden stab of guilt for his brother's exhaustion.

"Mikey, on the other hand, I'll drag right out of bed," Raph said with a wicked smile.

Leo smiled faintly, but he didn't feel much like joking.

He could feel anxiety creeping into his thoughts as he thought about what Raph had told him. Three days. Three days he had lost. Three days he didn't remember — which was alarming enough, but it was clear that something important had happened to him during that time. Important… and dangerous.

And other thoughts began to swirl through his head as he mused on that. Whatever had happened — whoever had attacked him during those two missing days — he needed to recall. He needed to know what the dangers were, if the people responsible were to come after him again — or, God forbid, his brothers. He couldn't be sure if they would or could, because he couldn't remember a thing about them.

He raised his left hand and gingerly touched his side, and was rewarded with a dull throb. Then he moved his hand up to his shoulder, probing it gently with his fingertips, feeling the pocks where glass and gravel had been dug out of his flesh. If he was careful with his movements, if he avoided aggravating his shoulder and ribs, he could be back in action in a matter of days…

"Don't." Raph's voice broke through his thoughts.

"Don't what?"

"I can see your face, Leo. I know you're thinkin' about going out there again. And I'm tellin' you, it ain't happening until you're better."

"It's not that bad," Leonardo tried to protest.

"You ain't lookin' at your own face," Raph retorted. "You look like you got in an disagreement with a prize-fighter. Now lie down and stop poking at yourself for a few minutes, and I'll get Master Splinter."


	11. Chapter 11

It was nearly twelve hours before the Turtles reconvened at the heart of their lair. Donatello had slept until late in the afternoon, peacefully oblivious to everything that happened around him. When he finally woke, he immediately staggered to his worktable and began analyzing the contents of one of the autoinjector darts, as if the sleep had just been a brief interference in his scientific studies.

And Leonardo, watched carefully by Splinter and Raph to make sure he didn't doze off again, spent much of the day sprawled on the couch, not moving a muscle. That in itself was a sign of how badly he had been affected, either by the poison or by the injuries — normally they would have had to argue with him to keep him from slipping into his daily katas.

He seemed lucid and aware of himself, but Splinter had seen the confusion in his eyes, the dark shadows of that past vagueness. Whatever had affected him was wearing off, but slowly.

"Well," Donatello said, finally sitting back in his chair, "we know one thing for sure. The guy you two chased is definitely connected to Leo's disappearance."

"Shell, Donnie," Raph said dryly. "Didja have to think a long time to come up with that?"

Don sighed, and he pushed a beaker away from the edge of his worktable. "You were just assuming that he was. I have proof. The substance I swabbed from Leo's arm is very chemically similar to the liquid inside those two darts that were thrown at you guys. If they had struck you in a vulnerable spot, they would have automatically injected you with the liquid."

"They were trying to kill us?" Mikey said incredulously.

"More like debilitate you."

"They tried to poison my face!" Mikey exclaimed.

Raph lightly smacked the back of his head.

"Which means we need to be extra careful not to get hit by those things, or else come up with some kind of counteragent," Don continued. "The only problem is that I have no idea how fast the toxin works."

"I volunteer Raph as a guinea pig," Michelangelo spoke up, a grin on his face.

"Shaddup, Mikey," Raphael ground out.

"It's tough, but we're going to have to sacrifice your body to science."

"Speakin' of sacrifices—"

Another voice broke through their brewing argument.

"Where do we go from there?"

The quarreling pair fell silent, and glanced over at where Leo was sitting, wrapped in his sleeping bag. He had been silent for the entire meeting thus far, and Donatello had privately wondered if he was even listening to what they were saying. Now his eyes were fixed on Don's face, with an intentness that had been missing from his gaze before.

"I'm honestly not sure," Don replied. "The only place we knew of that these people — whoever they are — might show up was at the alley where Leo's swords were found. And now that they know we're on to them, they won't go back there."

"If you don't mind me asking—" Mikey spoke up.

"We do," Raph interjected.

"—isn't the most important thing that we've got Leo back, safe and sound?"

"Not completely, Mikey," Don said. "Whoever they are, they were able to catch Leo and keep him away for up to two days. Not just anyone can do that. If they could catch him, then all of us are in danger. So we need to find out who they are, and how much they know about us."

He swiveled his chair to face Leo. "And so far we have only two leads. One is the autoinjector darts that Mikey and Raph found…. and the other one is Leo."

"Me?" Leo said, sounding slightly confused.

"Are you having any memories come back to you? Even brief flashes would be helpful, Leo."

Leo's forehead crinkled at the question, and he bowed his head slightly, his eyes searching the air above his knees. He hadn't been actively trying to remember what had happened to him — considering his injuries, he suspected that he wouldn't like whatever answers he found.

As he reached back to the previous few days, he found there was still an expanse of grey blankness. A gap. A place where he felt memories should be, but which somehow didn't contain them — not even the tangled glimpses of a half-forgotten dream when the dreamer woke to reality.

His breath began to come raggedly as he he bent forward further, resting his face against his hands, trying to scrape through that blankness in search of… something. Anything. He could feel his mind straining to pierce through that veil, but it was as if there wasn't anything to find behind it. Nothing to find, as far as he could tell.

And yet… and yet there had to be something there.

Two days missing. Poisoned. Injured. He pushed himself to remember anything that had led up to those, imagined himself tearing through that grey veil in search of what was behind it. But all that he gained was the sensation of sharp white-hot needles pushing into his brain, splintering his thoughts, seizing his body. He gasped, but kept pushing, kept feeling the pain in his head cracking and shattering like broken glass…

Splinter's voice broke through his confusion. "It is all right, my son." A hand settled gently on Leo's carapace.

"Leo." Don was suddenly kneeling beside him, looking concerned. "Leo, are you all right?"

"Yes," he said hoarsely.

"You don't look all right," Raph said, peering over the couch. "Shell, you look sicker than when you first got back."

Leo sat back on the couch, drawing a quavering breath. He suddenly became aware that his skin was slick with sweat, and he was shaking slightly. The piercing shivers of pain rippling through his brain still echoed inside his skull, making him feel a little nauseous.

"Did you remember anything?" Don asked.

"N-no," Leo said, raising a hand to his head. "I tried, but… there was nothing there. And the more I tried, the more it… hurt to try."

Don frowned, looking alarmed. "It shouldn't hurt you to try to dig through your memories — even if you have traumatic amnesia, you should simply have holes in your memory. Not this sort of…" He placed a hand on Leonardo's shoulder, gently turning his brother towards him. "Leo, don't try actively to remember until we know a little more, all right?"

"All right," Leo said shakily.

But in the silence that followed, Splinter's voice rose up again.

"There is one method we have not yet tried for recovering Leonardo's memories. It may be easier than actively trying to recall them."

Leo blinked. "Sensei?"

"Come with me, my son. I will show you."


	12. Chapter 12

A match was struck, and small candles scattered through Splinter's rooms were lit, one by one. The rat master quietly made his way around, illuminating the shadowy chamber with little fluttering spots of light, until it was bright enough that his sons could see where they were.

Kneeling before a low table, Leonardo watched him silently and patiently. He had no idea what his father had planned — there were many techniques and rites that Splinter knew of that he had never yet shown his sons — but he was more than willing to brave the unknown if it meant recovering his lost memories, and finding out who had captured him and what they had done to him.

Still, he felt a flutter of apprehension as Splinter approached him with a carved wooden box, and began carefully taking items out of it. More candles, a small incense holder made of carved stone, and a variety of incense sticks tied with small colored pieces of paper. Splinter looked through them one by one, until he found the one he wanted.

"First, the incense," Splinter said at last. He placed a few long sticks of incense in front of his son, and lit them. "Inhale the smoke, my son. We need your mind to be as receptive as possible."

Leonardo leaned over the table and inhaled deeply, and found that he liked the spicy, almost cinnamony smell of the incense. He kept inhaling it, keeping his breaths measured and deep, as if he were simply preparing his body for a deep meditative state.

He could feel the eyes of his three brothers on him, from where they were all crouching in the corner, trying to stay out of the way yet intent on seeing what might happen. Mikey kept trying to interject questions, only to be shushed hurriedly by Don or smacked by Raph.

"Very good, Leonardo," Splinter said solemnly, sliding the incense holder away. "This technique is the most useful when applied to memories that have been… intentionally erased or suppressed, rather than simply forgotten. We will try to find your lost memories through the eyes of your mind, rather than through conscious will."

"I'm ready, sensei," Leo said quietly.

Splinter nodded once. "Close your eyes, and let your mind be emptied. Let it be as malleable as clay, able to hold its shape yet be molded by what you will see. Clear all intrusive thoughts—"

"Sensei, is this gonna take very long?" Mikey piped up.

"Shut _up,_ Mikey," Raph said, smacking him.

"—such as your brothers," Splinter finished.

Leo obeyed. He felt his father's furred hands settle gently on either side of his head, feeling around as if searching for certain pressure points. At last he pressed a clawed fingertip lightly in the center of Leo's forehead. "Let your mind's eye be opened," he said quietly.

A warm, tingling sensation seemed to spark under Splinter's hands, rippling through Leonardo's skin and warming his brain from the inside. It was a strange sensation — like carbonated bubbles inside his bones — but not an unpleasant one. It made him feel oddly alert and light, as if his body was no longer tethered to the floor by gravity, and yet he had no reason to worry about falling. The pervasive ache in his side and shoulder had all but disappeared.

He inhaled the spicy aroma of the incense again, and centered himself. It came easily to him, as meditation often did, distancing himself from the sound of his brothers breathing and whispering amongst themselves. The outside world seemed to fall away, except for a cocoon of blissful silence and warmth around his body, penetrating to his bones and filling his mind. He could feel his own aura expanding and brightening, as his mind opened like a rose in the morning sun.

"Very good," Splinter said quietly. "And now — you must turn inward — to _remember."_

His hand suddenly pressed more fiercely on Leo's third eye, sending ripples of heat through his brain. Leo gasped loudly as his head snapped back, and his eyes unseeingly stared into—

 _—on all fours with the sandy floor beneath him, sweat dripping from his body, pain lancing through him—_

 _—"This won't hurt so much if you simply cooperate with me"—_

 _—a thin, bony man with grey hair and a toothy smile looking down at him, nodding approvingly—_

 _—"410B is showing the most promise"—_

 _—something enormous lurking around a corner, slowly clacking towards him—_

 _—one of them bending over his prone body, a long cylindrical object in his hand—_

 _—a long dark hallway, with the sound of squeaking wheels—_

 _—"it shouldn't take long to overcome his resistance"—_

 _—sharp pains in his abdomen—_

 _—hearing his own voice cry out—_

 _—something whispers in the dark—_

Leo gasped again, but this time it was the desperate sound of a drowning man struggling for breath. The world about him seemed to waver between darkness and light, with half-obscured images seeming to whirl around his head. A painful cramp suddenly seized his abdomen, and his senses suddenly rippled with sensations — his body remembered even if his mind didn't. A sudden piercing pain, a sudden jolt of pleasure, the creeping sensation of cold and damp, the roughness of being pushed across a concrete floor…

"Leo!"

He could feel hands on him, hear voices calling from far away. He sucked in another breath, fighting his way past the darkness, and—

Something slapped him.

"Hit him again, Don!"

"Wait," Leo gasped, blinking furiously. The room around him was growing light again, and the whirlwind of images faded away into the faces of his brothers, all clustered above him. He was lying flat on his shell.

"You back, bro?" Raph said, scowling.

"Yes," Leo said faintly. "Help me up, please."

"You're sweating like a pig, Leo," Mikey said. "You need a shower pronto."

"Are you all right, Leonardo?" Splinter said from across the table, his face laced with concern. "You should not have had such a violent reaction to the return of your memories."

"It was… it was a little overwhelming," Leo said, as Raph hoisted him back up to his knees.

"So, what did you remember?" Don said eagerly.

"I don't—I don't know. It was all so jumbled," Leo said hesitantly. "Just… a moment here or there — sensations, a few sentences." His face hardened. "I do know one thing… I didn't enjoy those two days."

"Did you remember any clues?" Don said, sounding slightly crestfallen.

Leo's eyes stared into the distance as he tried to think back over what he had seen. For a moment it seemed as though he had lapsed into a trance, but just as Donatello was about to shake him, a smile slowly spread across his face. "I need some paper."

Splinter wasted no time in placing a delicate sheet of paper on the table in front of him, and passed Leonardo a small charcoal pencil. The Turtle hunched over the table and began painstakingly sketching something, as Mikey tried desperately to look over his shoulder, but was pulled back by Raph. Occasionally he stopped, struggling to draw with his left hand rather than his right, but always returned to the sketch.

When Leonardo finally set down the pencil, a rough picture of something had been left behind — a round object loosely encircled by two long ribbons or tails.

"I kept seeing that in my mind," he said softly.


	13. Chapter 13

As the shoji door to Splinter's chambers slid open, Leo felt a tremor pass through his aching body. It was nothing compared to the pain and weakness he had felt earlier, but it was enough to remind him that Splinter's technique had taxed him more than he had thought it would. At first it had felt good — reinvigorating, even — and he had hoped that his memories would return smoothly. But once the memories had started…

His mind shuddered as those brief glimpses flashed back through his memories — they were too fragmented for him to be sure what had happened to him. It was unnerving to only remember pieces of what had happened to him, to know that he might never remember them in full — and that whoever had done this to him might still be after his family.

"You doin' okay, Leo?" Raph said from behind him.

"Yeah, I'm—I think I just need to collect myself," Leo said.

He sank onto the sofa again, cradling his injured arm against his chest. He could still feel sensations creeping across his skin, echoes of the pains that he had recalled only in part. Without thinking, he rubbed his side, wondering what precisely had caused all those sensations.

"Well, we finally have something solid that I can investigate," Don said, settling into his work chair and typing furiously on his computer. "I'm not sure what it is, but I can start searching for similar images over the Internet. It could be a stylized depiction of a molecule, I suppose…"

"It looks kind of like a burger logo," Mikey said, staring intently at the paper.

"Mikey, I don't think a burger place kidnapped Leo for two days," Don said with a smile. "What would they even want him for?"

"A mascot?"

Their genius brother's smile widened slightly at the absurdity of the idea, and he shook his head as he turned back to his computer, and lost himself in a glowing stream of data.

Raph was pacing restlessly through the lair like a tiger just released from his cage, occasionally casting glances at Leonardo, as if reassuring himself that his brother was still there and still awake. Eventually he migrated over to his punching bag and began kicking at it with all his strength. The lair fell silent for a time, except for Raph's grunts and the loud clicks of computer keys.

The next few hours were mostly quiet, except for a brief period when Mikey burned something in the kitchen. Leonardo rested his head on the back on the couch, and allowed his eyes to droop shut. He was tired — not the overwhelming fatigue of before, but just the tiredness that came from several hours of wakefulness when his body was so battered.

But he didn't quite dare to let himself sleep. The memories of pain and brief, unnerving flashes still clung to the edges of Leo's mind, and he suspected that if he allowed himself to sleep, they would follow him into his dreams. It had been bad enough when he had been subsumed in them, flailing madly in the darkness and reliving whatever they had done to him — it would be worse, somehow, if his mind twisted them into dreams.

And yet, a corner of his mind wondered, would sleeping allow him to remember more of what happened?

"Well," Don said finally, rising from his chair with a sheaf of papers in his hand, "I've cross-referenced this image with as many others as possible, and I've gotten everything from Saturn and its rings to a hydrogen isotope. There were also a wide array of corporate symbols."

"Were any of them burger places?" Mikey spoke up, a few seconds before Raphael smacked the back of his head.

"I really don't know where to start," Don said, flipping through the pages. "But I've printed these out for you, Leo — maybe if you see it here, it might jog your memory."

"It's worth a try," Leo said, taking the papers, and glancing over some of the images on the first page. They looked just familiar enough to make him feel as though they were something he had seen before… but the details were wrong. None of them looked precisely like what he had seen.

"I'm also going to show another copy to April, and see if she recognizes any of them," Don added.

"Ain't there somethin' we can be doing instead of just sittin' around waiting for Leo to recognize a symbol?" Raph said, flexing his hands restlessly.

"Well, you and Mikey could go scouting around the area west of April's shop, and see if you can find anything that resembles the symbol," Don said. He swung around towards Leo, and his face grew stern. "As for you, Leo, I think you need to get some sleep. You're never going to heal from what happened if you don't rest."

"But what if he wakes up and doesn't remember anything again?" Mikey said.

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I doubt it'll happen. The poison has been flushed from his system, and that seemed to act as a catalyst for whatever suppressed his memories." Don shrugged. "Besides, he can't stay awake forever."

"Don's right, Leo," Raph said. "Go to your room and get some sleep, or I'll put you to bed myself."

"No need to threaten me," Leo said with a faint smile.

Every bruise and scrape on his body seemed to be aching as he made his way to his bedroom, listening to his brothers discussing where they would be going and what they would be doing. He saw with some relief that one of them had placed his katanas by his bed, and they seemed to be none the worse for their abandonment in an alley.

Leonardo eased himself onto his bed, feeling his forehead crinkle with consternation. He wished he knew how he had been disarmed and captured — he liked to think that he was a fairly difficult person to defeat in combat, but it seemed as though his enemies had captured him without too much trouble. Then again, with those poisoned darts…

He settled himself with a groan, and inched over onto his left side to avoid putting pressure on his ribs or right shoulder. The dull throbs down the side of his body began to fade as he closed his eyes, and tried his hardest to think of nothing. Nothing at all.

He only hoped that he didn't dream of what had happened.


	14. Chapter 14

The sun had slipped into a thick bank of clouds by the time Donatello arrived at the Second Time Around store, and a thin grey rain was falling over the entire street. He peered from under the wide-brimmed hat he had donned for the occasion, pulled the collar of his coat higher, and made his way to April's apartment door.

He could hear her voice even before he raised his hand to knock — she was speaking to someone inside. Don slowed down, pressing the side of his face to the door and listening intently.

"… not a safe thing to do right now."

"All I'm sayin' is that we're gonna bust some heads when we find out who poisoned our friend."

Don relaxed. Casey Jones. He didn't have to worry about being seen by anyone in the apartment, then. He knocked twice, and the door opened a few seconds later.

April looked disheveled, a few strands of her red hair hanging in front of her eyes. She looked as though she hadn't slept. "Don!" she exclaimed, ushering him in. "What happened? Is—has something happened to Leo?"

"He's fine now," Don said, removing his hat. "He's resting back at the lair, and he seems to have flushed all the poison out of his system."

"You mean he ain't dying?" Casey said, sounding incredulous.

"No, Casey, he's not dying. Most poisons are only lethal in certain quantities, and Leo got a lower dose. He's going to be fine once he's rested up and healed from his injuries."

"Well, that's a relief," April said, tucking one of the stray strands behind her ear. "We were really starting to worry about him. And how are you? The last time I saw you, you were so tired you could barely stand up."

"A little sleep took care of that," Don said, smiling. "Actually I came by to ask for your help on something… a little strange."

"My life is full of strange things," April said philosophically. "What is it this time?"

He handed her the sheet of paper that Leo had sketched on, and folded his arms as she looked at it. "Master Splinter tried a technique on Leo to make him remember what happened to him during those two days."

"Did it work?" Casey asked eagerly.

"Not exactly. He remembered a few things, but nothing too useful. But he did remember this symbol." Don tapped the paper with a finger, making it tremble in April's hand. "We just have no idea what it could be — there are a lot of possibilities, but most of them are pretty remote."

"Looks like a flying saucer or somethin'," Casey said, peering over April's shoulder. "Think Leo was abducted by aliens?"

"I'm pretty sure the answer is no," Don said dryly.

But then he caught a glimpse of April's face. She had been silent throughout their conversation, and now he could see her eyes intently fixed on the image. Her face bore a puzzled expression, as though she were trying to figure out a complicated problem.

"I think I've seen this before," she said at last.

"You have?" Don said, startled.

"Or at least something very similar," April said, folding the paper and handing it back. "Come with me."

She swiftly moved into her bedroom, and hauled a large cardboard box out of her closet. Don frowned as she set it on her bed, and began rooting through the contents — which seemed to be mostly jumbled, disorganized papers.

"Fortunately I had this stuff in storage when the Shredder burned down my store," she said breathlessly, pulling handfuls of paper out and scattering them across her bedspread. "Otherwise it would have burned with everything else. I should have it in here with my other old files from before I worked with Baxter Stockman…"

"That far back?" Don asked.

"It isn't that far back, Don. I didn't work for Stockman for that long before he tried to kill me," April said, sounding a little offended. She upended the box on her bed, and began pushing heaps of papers and old receipts around, searching for something in their depths. "I really need to spend a weekend organizing all this stuff," she muttered.

Finally her hand closed around a large plastic envelope, which she brandished like a flag. "Found it," she exulted.

"What is 'it,' exactly?" Don asked hesitantly.

"Old job-hunting papers from after college." She opened the envelope and slid out a few sheets of paper, before handing one to Don.

Don's eyes widened. The letter itself was not of interest to him — only the symbol in the letterhead. It showed a simple reproduction of the globe, pale to the point of being almost white, which was surrounded by two metallic rings, one gold and one silver. Except for the coloration, it was almost exactly like Leo's drawing.

"Who sent you this?" he breathed.

"The Spartan Conglomerate."

"Who?"

"They're a collection of corporations that are headquartered here in New York. I'm not surprised you don't know about them — they have very limited contact with the public, focusing mostly on contracts with other corporations and the government. Basically, you probably only know about them if you have some particular reason to hire them."

"Why did they contact you?"

"They wanted me to work for their computer science division when I got out of college. I turned them down."

"Why?"

"Honestly, I'd heard some unsavory things about Spartan — mostly about one of their divisions being into weapons development. I didn't want to be involved with anything like that, so…" She shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "I decided to take a job with Baxter Stockman instead, because I thought it would be the better choice. I have pretty lousy judgement, don't I?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Don said, frowning down at the letter. "If they had something to do with Leo's disappearance, it may have been just a choice between two bad options."

"So now that we know who poisoned Leo," Casey spoke up, "does that mean we can start poundin' 'em?"

"Not just yet, Casey," Don said, folding the letter and slipping it into the pocket of his coat. "First we need to see if this is actually what Leo saw, and we have to wait for him to wake up for that to happen. I'm not going to disturb him. Plus, Mikey and Raph are out in the Battleshell, looking for clues. We have to wait until they come back before we can start planning anything."

"There's one other thing," April said, wrapping her arms around herself, as if she were cold. "If these Spartan people were the ones who kidnapped Leo, then they must have people working for them that could capture a ninja as skilled as he is."

Don nodded. "That too," he said quietly. That was the part that bothered him the most.


	15. Chapter 15

"You get the feeling Don sent us on a wild goose chase?"

Mikey's question broke through the silence that had settled over them after the Battleshell had left its warehouse home. He and Raph had been combing every street — every alley, every dumpy building visible from the road — to the west of April's shop, seeking something that looked like a circle surrounded by two rings. So far, nothing.

Raph grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"I mean, I'm not saying he did it on purpose, but come on," Mikey continued, turning the Battleshell around another corner. "What are the chances that we'd find exactly what we're looking for when the only thing we know about it is: it might be west? I don't know a lot about odds, but I bet if Don were here, he'd say that they were bad."

"Well, it's better than sittin' around the lair, waiting for Leo to wake up so he can look at pictures," Raph said darkly.

"I guess," Mikey said. "Maybe he'll remember something when he's asleep, and Don can use that instead." He brightened. "Hey, maybe he'll remember everything this time, and we won't have to keep looking for these bozos and can just get to the good part. Maybe—"

"Maybe pigs will fly," Raph grunted.

"You don't have to be so rude about it, Raph."

"Yeah, I do."

The silence fell between them again as Mikey tried to think of a snappy comeback, but none came to mind. He swerved onto a small side-street littered with shops and old theaters, and craned his neck to see all of their signs as the Battleshell rumbled past. Raph leaned his head back against the seat, and let his gaze roam over the signs and darkened windows along the street.

"Mikey," Raph said suddenly. "Slow down."

"Slow down what? The Battleshell or my lightning wit?"

"The only thing on that list that really exists. I think someone's followin' us."

Mikey's eyes widened. Automatically he glanced in the rearview mirror, but there were no cars driving behind them — at least, none that he could see. The dimly-lit street seemed to be empty except for the two Turtles.

"I think you're getting paranoid, Raph," he said.

"Not on the street, dipstick. Above it. I been watching the rooftops as we've been drivin' around, and there's somebody runnin' around up there."

"We run around up there sometimes," Mikey pointed out.

"And so does the Foot," Raph said, grinding his fist into the palm of his hand. His eyes were glinting with dark fire. "I don't care if Donnie thinks it wasn't them — nobody follows people on rooftops except it's payback time for what they did to Leo."

Mikey glanced out the window at the rooftops looming over them, lit faintly by the yellow moon. He thought he saw something dart over the top of the old theater rooftop, but he wasn't entirely sure it was a ninja up there. It could be a bird. Or a cat. Or Silver Sentry trying to be unobtrusive.

"Raph, I don't think this is—" he started to say.

But the door swung open and Raph leapt from the Battleshell before he could finish his sentence. Muttering under his breath, Mikey braked hard, and scrambled out into the darkened street. He just hoped that Raph wasn't leading him on another wild goose chase so soon after Donnie had done the same.

Raph could hear the pattering of light footsteps as he vaulted onto the building's rooftop, his sais already clutched in his white-knuckled fingers. In the pale, dim light he could see a dark-clad figure lurking behind a chimney, its face hidden behind a dark ninja mask. It was looking directly at him, with an odd air of contemplation, as if he were an intriguing distraction from what it was really doing there.

A grin crossed Raphael's face, and it grew wider as he heard Mikey thump down just behind him.

"I told ya, Mikey," he said. "Stinkin' Foot."

"Raph, the engine's running," Mikey said.

"So I'll be quick," Raph said ominously, twirling his sais.

He saw the weighted chain just a second before it whirled past his face, nearly sending the sai flying from his hand. He gritted his teeth and caught the chain, yanking it towards himself to pull the strange ninja closer. He saw the flashing of moonlight on the kusarigama blade fast enough to dodge it, parrying it with his sai.

"What's the matter?" he snarled. "All out of those little darts?"

The ninja lashed out with one foot at Raph's stomach, sending him stumbling back a few steps. It smarted, but his plastron protected him from some of the kick's impact. He let out a dull roar and sent the ninja stumbling backwards, the kusarigama still tangled in the sai. Raph tossed the discarded weapon aside, and took a few steps toward his enemy, his eyes narrowed to slits.

"Didja give my brother a fair fight?" he challenged.

The ninja cocked his head to one side, slowly looking from one brother to the other, as if he had come across an intriguing puzzle that he was trying to unravel. There was something about that look that turned Raphael's anger into rage; he gritted his teeth and held his sais even tighter, ready to lash out again.

"Can I have a turn?" Mikey said.

"Be my guest," Raph muttered.

Mikey launched himself towards the ninja, his nunchaku whirling like twin cyclones. When he put his mind to it, Raph knew, Mikey could be a formidable opponent; it was mostly his flakiness that held him back in battle.

But the strange ninja leaped aside, landing a harsh kick to the side of Mikey's head, sending him stumbling into Raph's path. Mikey rallied quickly and smashed one of his nunchaku into the man's head, driving him back across the rooftop with inexorable determination, his face locked in a grimace of intense concentration. For a moment the strange ninja seemed to be in retreat, defensively blocking Mikey's savage blows.

Then the blade glinted again in the moonlight, sweeping down towards Mikey's shoulder.

"Mikey, to your left!" Raph bellowed.

He bounded past his brother with a shout, lashing out with his sai in an attempt to block the blow. He saw the whirling chain whipping up into the air just a second too late, just as the heavy weight at the end slammed into his side, knocking the breath from his lungs. He crashed into the chimney like a discarded sandbag, his shell smashing a hole in the brick wall.

"Raph!" Mikey shouted. He lunged at the ninja and managed to seize the front of the ninja's clothing in one fist.

"Who the shell are you?" he shouted in the ninja's face. "Why are you following us?"

The ninja stared at him for a moment, then leaped off the side of the building. His shirt ripped open in the front, leaving the Turtle with a handful of shredded cloth.

"Oh no you don't!" Mikey said, poising himself to leap.

But a loud moan from behind him made him pause, long enough to look back at the crumpled figure of Raph, covered in brick dust and bits of broken shingle. When he looked back at the alley below, the shadowy figure had gone.

Raphael was coughing and groaning when Mikey got back to him, his legs curled under him and a fine layer of red dust floating around him. "Didja get him?" he wheezed.

"I got part of him," Mikey said, brandishing the fist full of cloth.

Raph grimaced. "I wish you'd gotten a part that hurt," he said ominously.

He staggered to his feet and began brushing himself off, grimacing as he thought about how that rotten ninja had managed to take him down so easily. He wasn't inexperienced at taking down the Foot's little ninja minions, which was a relatively easy task; even when outnumbered, he knew that he and his brothers were more than a match for the Foot, as long as the Elite didn't get involved.

And yet Raph had been beaten by one of them. No, Raph and Mikey together had been beaten by one. He grimaced and rubbed a bruise forming on his ribs, where the weight had crashed into him.

"Uh, Raph," Mikey said suddenly from behind him. "I think you need to take a look at this."

He held the torn cloth aloft.


	16. Chapter 16

_—"… necessary for our ultimate goal. An excellent specimen."_

 _He was lying on his back in a darkened room, unable to see anything around him. His head swam as he tried to look around, feeling a strange tingling running through his arms and legs. He was held down — his hands and feet were tightly cuffed to a gurney, leaving him barely able to move. He pulled at them experimentally, only to feel the metal biting into his flesh. And there were voices — strange, cold voices coming from the dark, fading in and out of his hearing._

 _And suddenly cold hands were touching him, feeling him, slowly running their fingers down his plastron. He twisted away from them, pulling against the handcuffs —_

A gasp ripped from his throat as he woke, staring up at the ceiling of his room with wide, panicked eyes. For a moment, Leo couldn't remember how he had gotten into his own bed — he remembered being somewhere dark, somewhere cold… and he remembered being horribly afraid.

He glanced down at his chest, still feeling phantom fingers sliding down it in an eerie caress. But the only hand touching him was his own, draped over his stomach and clenched into a fist.

He took a shaky breath, feeling his abused body trembling as he tried to calm down, tried to steady himself before he suffered a full-blown panic attack. His heart was still hammering against his ribs, and he could feel that he was slathered in a thin layer of cold sweat. He closed his eyes again, trying to center himself as he did in meditation, knowing that the calm and balance he sought could only come from the depths of his own soul.

Five minutes later, he was still trying. His heart was still racing as if he were running over rooftops instead of lying in his own bed, and his breath was still rasping in his throat. His mind had forgotten what had happened to him, but it seemed that his body still remembered.

He wasn't even sure what he was afraid of. That memory — if it was a memory, and not just a garden-variety nightmare — had been unnerving, especially the part about being chained down on a gurney. But it hadn't been so frightening as to cause this strong a reaction. There was something missing from it — he had experienced the sensations and felt the emotions, but the knowledge of where he was and what was happening was missing. The reason for the fear was missing… and that was the part that he desperately needed to know.

His left hand uncurled, and slowly traced one of the plates of his plastron as he thought. Who had been touching him? And why? Why had he felt a sudden rush of fear when they did?

He had fallen onto his carapace during his nightmare, his shell sinking into his soft mattress. Now he rolled back onto his left side with a groan, wishing that he could go back to sleep. But the dream had jolted him wide awake, despite the creeping, aching tiredness that leadened his bones.

Everything on his right side hurt, though the throbbing in his shoulder had subsided somewhat. He could actually move that arm a little without too much pain, although he suspected it would be at least a week before he could use it normally. Perhaps he should ask Don — if Don was back from April's place — for some kind of pain-relief.

It took several minutes for him to extricate himself from his bed without aggravating his ribs, shoulder or the many cuts and scrapes on his body. Once he was upright, he limped out into the main chamber of the lair, feeling groans rising in his throat as his healing bruises sent dull aches through his flesh.

Don was standing in his lab, peeling off a damp trenchcoat. He glanced up, and exclaimed, "Leo, what are you doing out of bed?"

"I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep," Leonardo said painfully. "Do you have anything for the pain?"

"I have some anti-inflammatory pills, but nothing stronger," Don said.

"Then I suppose I'll have those."

As he made his way to Don's work area, Don suddenly pulled something out of the trenchcoat's pocket.

"April found something that might help us. Have you ever heard of the Spartan Conglomerate?"

"Not that I know of."

"Well, April received a letter from them a few years ago, and the — well, just look at it."

He held out the letter, and Leo glanced over it, his eyes falling on the small symbol in the letterhead.

 _—white symbol glowing in the harsh light against a gray uniform—_

 _—a larger symbol looming over him as they wheeled him through—_

Leo flinched, feeling as if something had just dislodged inside his head. He closed his eyes and rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead. "That's the symbol," he muttered.

"Did you remember something?" Don said eagerly.

"Yeah, but still just little flashes. Nothing very helpful," Leo said.

"Well, just give it time. I'm sure eventually you'll start putting the pieces together, and remember something substantial."

Leo thought back to the dream he had had, and had to repress a shudder. So far his fragmented memories had just brought him pain and confusion, without answering any of his vital questions.

"Well, that takes us one step in the right direction," Don said, leaning back in his chair. "Now we know the Spartan Conglomerate is somehow involved in all this. Now we have to figure out why they would kidnap a mutant turtle."

"What does this conglomerate do?" Leo asked warily.

"A lot of things, apparently. Mostly contracts for other companies and for the government. April turned down their job offer because apparently they have a big weapons development division, and she didn't feel comfortable working for someone like that."

"Weapons development?" Leo said incredulously. He shook his head. "If they wanted to learn all about katana, they could have just asked."

"It isn't necessarily that division, though," Donnie was quick to point out. "They have medical testing labs that might have reasons for wanting to study a mutant turtle, for instance."

"I'm pretty sure I've had nightmares that started that way," Leo said dryly.

Before Donnie could reply, his shell cell beeped loudly at him. He answered it, and a crinkle appeared on his forehead. "Mikey, we have good news. Leo identified—Mikey, calm down—Mikey, you're yelling at me. Please calm down and speak more clearly." He paused. "That's better. What do you mean, you fought a ninja? Mikey, what does that even mean?"

After a moment, Don pulled the shell cell away from his face, and stared down at it. "He hung up on me," he said.

"What was he saying?" Leo asked.

"Something about fighting a ninja who wasn't what Raph thought he was. You know how Mikey gets when he's overexcited."

Leo smiled, remembering other times when Mikey had become incoherent with fear or excitement. But his smile faded, and a feeling of unease began to creep into his blood.


	17. Chapter 17

"… and Raph was all 'grr, a Foot ninja, we're gonna kick his butt,' and I tried to get him to stop, but he jumped out of the Battleshell and up on the rooftop, and they were fighting, so I tried fighting the ninja, but he was all, 'I'm better than you guys' and threw Raph into a chimney…"

Leonardo sighed, and sank down deeper into the couch. Don had been listening to Mikey's rambling explanation of where they had been and what they had been doing for several minutes now, with an air of stalwart patience. Raph had headed straight for the kitchen and extracted a bag of ice from the freezer, which he draped over his shoulder with a groan.

"… and then his clothes just kinda ripped, which makes them pretty poor quality, I think. So then instead of getting an enemy ninja as a prisoner or something, I just ended up with this."

Mikey brandished a fistful of black cloth with an air of mild displeasure.

"And you've been carrying around part of a shirt for all this time," Don said, sounding unimpressed.

"Well, I'd've thrown it away, except it has a symbol on it."

"A Foot symbol?"

"No!" Mikey burst out. "That's the weird thing about it. We just kinda assumed the guy was with the Foot, so we didn't really look at his clothes that carefully. But when I looked at the shirt—"

He began unfolding the black cloth. Leo sat up more sharply, his eyes fixed on the scrap as something came into view — what looked like an embroidered image of a flower, a simple graphic design with two curling lines and a single spiked petal in front.

"Not unless the Foot's started wearing floral print," Mikey said.

That caught Leo's interest. He rose gingerly from the couch and got a closer look at the flower design, feeling something twitching loose in the back of his brain. It looked vaguely familiar — not so much as the Spartan symbol, but still…

"Have you seen it before, Leo?" Don asked.

"I—don't know. I may have," Leo said slowly. "We should show it to Master Splinter. Maybe he will recognize it."

"At least we know this is one thing we can't blame on the Foot," Mikey said with a smile, and he nudged Leo in the stomach with his elbow.

The effect was immediate and excessive. The breath seemed to rush out of Leo's lungs, as if someone had violently punched him in the gut. He doubled over, his arms tightly wrapped around his abdomen, a wild rushing noise blazing in his ears, the room swimming around him as he—

 _—looked down at his abdomen. A thick, immovable needle had penetrated between the bony plates of his plastron, and he could feel something cold burning deep inside his body. His breaths came in short gasps, though he wasn't sure whether it was from panic or the pain—_

 _— crashed into a wall, hard enough that he felt his shell smash through it. He slid down to the sandy ground, his dazed mind trying desperately to keep up with his instincts. He had to fight, had to run. Then a massive hand clamped around his throat, pulling him back into the air, strangling him—_

"Leo? _Leo?"_ Hands were on him, pulling him out of the memory. Leo took a deep shuddering breath and gripped the wrist in front of him, holding it like a lifeline out of his memories.

"Leo, wake the shell up!" Raph's voice bellowed.

"I'm awake!" Leo gasped, just as Raph seized his arms and jerked him violently. The muscles of his shoulder blazed with pain. "I'm awake! I just—"

"Another flashback?" Don said, leaning over the back of the couch.

"I—yes," Leo said, trying to shake himself out of it. "Two of them. And earlier I dreamed another one."

"This really concerns me," Don said, tilting Leo's head up and staring intently at his eyes. "Every time you get back some of your memory you seem to lose contact with the real world and experience immediate distress. That could be dangerous if it happened in the wrong place."

"Dude, I didn't hit you in the stomach that hard, did I?" Mikey said, concerned.

Leo glanced down. Without being aware of it, he had pressed both hands tightly against his stomach. And he could have sworn that he still felt a shock running through his shell from where it had smashed through that wall…

"No, you didn't, Mikey," Leo said heavily. "It was just… something I remembered, that's all."

"So now what?" Raph said, rising from the couch.

"Now we show that piece of cloth to Master Splinter, and see what he might know about it," Leo said.

"Raph and Mikey can do that," Don said, appearing at Leo's side with a notepad and pen. "Leo, I want you to describe these flashbacks you've been having. Maybe it'll give us an idea of what to look out for when we investigate the Spartan Conglomerate."

"I suppose that makes sense," Leo said reluctantly. "Well, this morning I had a flashback to being chained to a gurney. Someone was—touching me." His hand strayed back down to his belly. "Just now, I remembered a needle in my stomach, and then being smashed into a wall by something very big."

"You can't be more specific about what it was?" Don said, scribbling furiously.

"No, I only remembered its hand. Which was enormous."

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," Raph said, smiling at the prospect of a fight. "We'll make mincemeat out of it, whatever it is."

"Um, aren't you forgetting the flower ninjas?" Mikey pointed out. "I'm not saying we got our shells kicked, but we might have a problem if we're too outnumbered by them."

"It does make sense to assume that the appearance of an unknown ninja is connected to Leo's kidnapping," Don said.

"Unknown ninja, my son?" a soft voice said from the other end of the room. Master Splinter had emerged from his room without making a sound, and was watching them with a perplexed expression. "Flower?"

Mikey held up the scrap of black cloth. "This one, sensei."

Master Splinter's eyes widened. "Where did you get that, Michelangelo?"

"Me and Raph fought a guy wearing this," Mikey said quickly. "He was pretty tough, for a guy with a flower theme."

Master Splinter took the cloth and smoothed it out, staring at the symbol with an increasingly worried expression.

"The Blue Lotus," he murmured.

"You've seen it before, Master Splinter?" Leo said, leaning over the back of the couch.

"Indeed I have — a formidable ninja warrior who fought in the Battle Nexus some years ago wore it. He did not win, but he came close." Splinter folded the cloth, and handed it back to Mikey. "He was a part of the Blue Lotus — a ninja clan which is very small compared to the Foot, but possesses elite skills and training. They are very dangerous, my sons."

"Great, like we didn't have enough to worry about," Mikey said.


	18. Chapter 18

"You will not leave the lair until Leonardo has recovered."

Splinter's words echoed through the lair, and in the silence that followed Leonardo couldn't even hear his brothers breathing. He quickly looked to their faces, and found more or less what he expected to find — Raph looking irritated, Don looking resigned, and Mikey mildly outraged.

"But Master Splinter," Mikey protested, "those guys kidnapped Leonardo and threw him off a roof.… or something like that."

"Exactly," Splinter said sternly. "You should only go out to confront these threats when you are all together. Michelangelo and Raphael have encountered the enemy twice, and have not fared well."

"We didn't do that badly," Mikey pointed out.

"You were both nearly poisoned, and had Raphael fought the Blue Lotus ninja alone, he would have fallen."

"It might be a good idea to wait a little while," Don spoke up, gesturing at his worktable. "I could use the time to create an antitoxin, in case they try to poison one of us again. I've been so busy tracking down that Spartan symbol that I haven't had time."

"That seems very wise, Donatello," Splinter said, placing both hands on his walking stick.

"But what are the rest of us supposed to do?" Mikey exclaimed.

"Leonardo is supposed to heal," Splinter said sternly. "Heal and remember as much of his experiences as he is able. It seems that his memories are coming back to him slowly, and you will need to know as much of what you are up against as possible before you face your enemies."

"I'll do my best, sensei," Leo said.

"Okay, I'm gonna rephrase that. What are Raph and I supposed to do?" Mikey said irritably.

"Michelangelo, surely you have some way of amusing yourself for a few days," Splinter said, moving back towards his room.

"Yeah, Mikey, I'd've thought you'd take any opportunity to sit back on your butt and watch TV for as long as possible," Raph said with a smirk.

"Well, yeah, but being told I can't leave the lair makes me really want to leave it," Mikey said sullenly, crossing his arms.

Leo sank down into the couch once again, and tried to block out the squabbling that was erupting between Raph and Mikey. Gently he moved his left hand over his right shoulder, and was rewarded with a dull ache from deep inside his muscles. He trailed his hand back down to his side, and wondered how long it would take before his injured ribs would allow him to return to his normal routine.

In the meantime, while he waited for his body to mend, he also needed to put his mind to work. The scraps of memory were coming back of their own accord — more often as time went on, it seemed — but the little snatches of sensation and sound that he had gotten were too incomplete to be helpful. Maybe with meditation, he could bring on more memories faster.

Gingerly, to avoid hurting his ribs, he slid down to the floor and arranged his legs in the lotus position. He breathed as deeply as he was able, and let his eyes drift shut.

"All I'm saying—"

"All you're sayin' is that you wanna go out 'cause you're not allowed to."

"Would you two pipe down? I'm trying to work."

Leo's forehead wrinkled slightly as he forced himself to ignore the bickering that was going on not too far from him, and sought the peaceful, calm space at the center of his being. Master Splinter's memory technique had jarred loose the memories that had been stolen from him, so perhaps now he could see them out without the crippling pain of before.

For a moment he allowed his mind to linger over the memories that had surfaced before, despite their unpleasantness. He tried to remember what had come before being chained to that gurney, what had come after he was picked up by that enormous hand…

Suddenly a sharp pain jabbed him directly between the eyes, as though a needle had been driven right through his skull. He gasped, pressing one of his hands to his head. He—

 _—… could feel a hand running along the edge of his shell, starting just behind his head and curving down towards the backs of his thighs. He squirmed again at the unwanted touch. Someone had jabbed a needle into the bend of his arm, and he could feel something hot and thick flooding into his veins._

 _"… extract more samples for analysis. But so far, everything looks good."—_

Leo's breath rushed out of him in a torrent, and for one horrible moment he felt like he couldn't breathe. His muscles constricted painfully in his chest, and he drew in a gasp of air. He huddled forward, breathing deeply and trying to banish the stabbing pain in the center of his head, feeling sweat dotting his face.

But he had done it. He had managed to summon a memory through will alone.

He smiled faintly, and wiped at his face with one hand. He would meditate for awhile longer, until he could banish the quaking and pain from his body. And then he would try again.

* * *

Donatello delicately balanced the empty dart on his fingertips, careful not to let the tip touch his skin. He had already extracted the toxin from it, but better to be safe than sorry — a drop or two might still be in there, and while such a small amount wouldn't kill or debilitate him, he didn't want to find out how painful it would be.

His eyes flicked over to where Leonardo was seated, his hands outspread on his thighs and his eyes closed. Meditation was one of Leo's ways of handling any problems with his mind or body, and in this case, Don couldn't say it was a bad idea. His mind was a jumble of torn-up memories and lost information right now, so putting it in order might get him the results he wanted.

Don sat back and rubbed his face. It would probably take the better part of a week for Leo's body to heal enough for him to venture out with them — the last thing they wanted was for someone to kick him in the side or shoulder and have him be immobilized by the pain.

And of course, in a week he might have recovered enough memories to give them an idea of what was waiting for them. Don didn't know about Raph or Mikey, but the sheer amount of unknowns in this case made him nervous.

Of course, that also meant living with a bored Mikey for the better part of a week.

Don sighed, and leaned back over the beaker of chemicals that he had just mixed. No rest for the weary, he reflected.


	19. Chapter 19

_—he scuttled along the edge of the arena, keeping his shell against the wall, his eyes flickering over the spattering of light and shadow in front of him. It could be anywhere in front of him. He kept himself alert for any signs of movement, anything that might be a threat — a glimpse of a tail, the reflection in an eye, a sound._

 _He crouched down, resting one knee against the sand underneath him, ready to spring forward if anything came close. He had speed and agility on his side, and he knew how to use them to best advantage._

 _Faint voices came from somewhere above, as if from a great distance away:_

 _"Is it employing strategic thinking or is that stance merely a happy accident?"_

 _"The former, I think. Look at how it has positioned itself against the wall."_

 _Something rumbled in the dark, and if Leo had any hair on the back of his neck, it would have been standing on end. He drew a breath, tensed his body, and leaped as something swung a heavy limb at him, leaving score marks on the wall—_

The memory crashed into Leo like a wrecking ball. He buried his face in his arms, breathing raggedly as it faded away into his mind, another torn fragment of those lost two days falling into place.

"Do I need to smack you again?" Raph's voice cut through his confusion.

"No," Leo breathed, raising his head, his breathing still coming in gasps. "I'm fine. It was — just a really long one this time."

Raph curled his legs up in front of his chest, and rested a notepad against his knees. With Don working tirelessly on an antitoxin, Raph had appointed himself the chronicler of Leo's fragmented memories, crouching in his brother' bedroom and writing down anything that Leo was able to remember. It was less rewarding than it sounded, but it was better than being around a bored Mikey.

"So what didja see this time?" he said, twirling a pencil like a sai.

"I was in some… some kind of arena," Leo said slowly. "There was… something in there with me, but I couldn't see it clearly. And someone above was watching me the whole time, trying to figure out my strategies." His voice darkened. "And they called me an 'it.'"

Raph caught the pencil between his fingers and began writing furiously, filling up nearly two pages with his sprawling handwriting. Then he glanced over at Leo's face.

"You doin' all right, Leo? You look kinda peaky," he said.

"That last one just made me feel like a Triceraton had stepped on my head," Leo said, taking a deep breath. He let his head rest against his mattress. "Okay, a few more minutes and I try to unearth another one."

"Forget it," Raph said, plunking the notepad down on the floor beside him. "That's three you've gotten today, just in the last couple hours. Your head's gonna explode if you keep doin' this."

"We need to know as much as possible before we go back out there," Leo murmured, but his heart wasn't entirely into it. His vision was swimming, and a dull thudding seemed to have taken up residence behind his forehead. He ground a hand against his head, as if trying to push the pain away.

"We're takin' a break, at least," Raph said, seizing Leo's elbow and hauling him to his feet. "We ain't going nowhere if you mess with your own head so much you can't stand up."

Leo couldn't disagree. The last week had been an unpleasant one for him — he had spent long hours meditating and plumbing his brain for every scrap of memory he had lost, and each one came with a proportionate cost. He was often left gasping and disoriented for awhile after each memory returned, and more than a few a day tired him out. At least he no longer had to be slapped awake when they struck.

But he had been able to piece together a few more things about his captivity — he had been fighting something he wasn't able to see clearly, a piercing pain in his head, and a shadowy shape that looked remarkably like a ninja. Probably one of the Blue Lotus, he reflected.

A loud whoop from outside caught his attention, and Raph grimaced.

"If Mikey don't quit with that board, I'm gonna dunk him in the pool," he grunted, stepping out of Leo's bedroom.

Their youngest brother was skateboarding in circles down below, apparently trying to see if he could soar off every piece of furniture in the lair. The only area he was leaving alone was Don's workshop, where the genius was hunched over several beakers of various fluids, most of which were — Leo assumed — related to the toxin. Don's face was set in a frown, and had been for the last few days as his chemistry skills were tested.

"Hey, Don," Raph called out as they approached. "Anything new to tell us?"

Don sighed, and sat back in his chair. "Well, I have good news and bad news."

Leo grimaced. "Let's hear the bad news first."

"Sorry, it won't make sense without the good news. The good news is that I think I've developed an effective antitoxin that will counteract the poison in those darts."

"And the bad news?"

"I can't test it. Making the antitoxin took up almost my entire supply of the toxin itself, so there's no way of knowing if it works unless one of us gets poisoned."

"I'd rather we didn't have to test it, then," Leo said grimly.

"We should all bring a supply when we head out, just in case," Don said, holding up long, thin grey objects. "I've created my own autoinjectors, so all you have to do when you're hit is jab yourself with this. It should work almost immediately." He tilted his head, looking at Leo. "How is your shoulder doing?"

"It's pretty much back to normal," Leo said, flexing his arm. The bruised, swollen feeling had died down after the first few days, and the lingering pain and stiffness a few days after that. His ribs were still tender, but Don had said that would continue for some weeks.

As if sensing his thoughts, Don reached 0ut and touched Leo's side, gently prodding the fractured ribs. "As long as you're careful of these, you should be ready to go topside," he remarked.

Mikey zipped by with another loud whoop. Raph threw out his arm in an attempt to knock their brother from his skateboard, but the youngest deftly avoided running into it.

"That's good," Don said dryly, "because I'm pretty sure Mikey is going to lose his mind if we're down here much longer."

"Then it's settled," Leo said, crossing his arms. "We leave tonight."


	20. Chapter 20

"I missed this," Leonardo said, the chilly night wind whipping the tails of his mask back from his face.

"Good thing we gotcha out of the lair before you forgot what it was like," Raph said, grinning.

The four of them were perched on a warehouse roof, overlooking a high brick wall that surrounded a trio of tall buildings, glittering with shining windows and long sweeps of glass and steel. The wall was broken by a few heavily-guarded gates, each with a watchtower built beside it. Spotlights swept across the luxuriantly grassy lawn, which was crisscrossed with artificially quaint brick walkways that looped around the buildings.

"Ringin' any bells, Leo?" Raph asked.

"Everything I remember was indoors, so no," Leo responded.

"It looks pretty boring," Mikey said critically, surveying the buildings. "Are we sure we're at the right place?"

"For the tenth time, Mikey, yes," Don said with a hint of irritation, bending the microphone of his headpiece away from his mouth. "Yes, April, I'll hold. Mikey, this is a Spartan Conglomerate compound that's near enough for Leo to have escaped from it, so it's the most likely to have some kind of information we can use. If April can just get into the security — yes, I'm here, April." Don listened carefully for a moment.

Leo could hear April's faint, tinny voice from the headset speakers. _"I'm in, and I have control of the spotlights on the west side. I can turn them off for maybe five minutes before someone notices."_

"That's fine, April," Don said. "We should be in long before anyone notices."

They moved as swiftly and silently as the night wind, leaping down from the warehouse roof and into the shadow of the wall. The only sign that someone was moving there was the brief glimmer of eyes in the dark, but there was no one there to see them.

Leo felt his muscles tensing as he reached the west side of the wall, prepared to leap over the moment the lights cut out. This was it — he finally had a chance to discover what had happened during those two missing days, and he was determined not to leave Spartan until he had some answers. He just hoped no more memories appeared at an inopportune time…

He winced slightly at a faint flicker of pain deep in his abdomen, like a muscle cramp where there shouldn't be one.

"You all right, dude?" Mikey whispered.

"Just a stomachache," Leo responded. "It's nothing."

The lights suddenly flicked off. Four dark shapes vaulted over the wall, landing with soft thumps on the grass, and darted across the darkened expanse of grass.

Leo could feel Raph and Don watching him intently as he led them across the lawn, waiting for some sign of injury or the surfacing of a new memory. That irritated him — not his brothers' concern, but that he had become so fragile that they needed to feel concerned about him. He sped up the pace, heading straight for a small doorway embedded in the back of the building, but paused as he saw a sleek control panel in the wall beside it.

"Electronic lock — this one's my department," Don said softly, pulling out a screwdriver and a tiny electronic screen.

"Just do it quickly," Leo said, glancing over his shoulder. "Those lights will come back on if we don't hurry."

Don's hands flew over the lock, rearranging wires and chips as if he had been doing it all his life. Leo glanced over his shoulder at the wall. He could hear voices faintly ringing out beyond it — someone had noticed the lights, and they would be turning them on any second now.

The door suddenly chirped, and Leo heard a loud thunk from inside as it unlocked. Donnie wrenched it open, and the Turtles poured into the stairwell beyond. Leo smiled slightly as Don carefully closed the door behind them, being careful not to let it bang shut.

"Good work, Don," he said, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Where next?"

"Isn't that something you should tell us?" Mikey said. "I mean, you're the only one who's been here before."

"I just need to get to a computer so I can try to access the network," Don said, glancing up the stairwell. "I think I can get into the sensitive files if I have enough time."

"We'll make sure you get that time," Leo promised.

He slipped up the stairwell and opened the first promising-looking door, which opened into a half-darkened hallway lined with even more doors. The hall stretched and branched off in other directions, and Leo could hear voices murmuring from inside one of the rooms. Light leaked from under the door.

"What kind of freak works this late?" Mikey asked.

"Shaddup, Mikey," Raph said.

Don headed for the nearest office, and slipped inside easily and silently. His three brothers followed him, with Leo bringing up the rear so that he could shut the door as quietly as possible.

The computer screen was already glowing when he turned around, illuminating Don's face. He was already typing furiously, his thick fingers dancing across the keyboard. But the expression on his face didn't reassure Leo — he looked annoyed, almost angry.

"This security is almost airtight," he muttered. "Someone really doesn't want their corporate secrets exposed."'

"Can you get inside?" Leo asked, listening at the door.

"I can — I think. It's not easy, and we might not have very long before someone figures out that the network's being used against them," Don said distractedly, still typing.

Minutes stretched by, with the silence broken only by the sound of the keys clacking. Leo remained at his post by the door, hoping that no one outside saw the glow of the computer underneath it.

Then he heard something moving outside. His breath caught in his throat, and one of his hands automatically went to the hilt of one of his katanas. Steps creaked by one by one, paused outside the door, and Leo's eyes flicked down to where a pair of shadows were faintly outlined under the doorway. Someone was standing directly outside…

Then the steps began again, and faded away into silence. Leo let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and shakily stepped back from the door.

"I think I just lost a year's growth," Mikey whispered.

Don suddenly sat back in the computer chair, his eyes shining in the pale light of the monitor. "Well," he said quietly, "I'm in, but I don't know what to do next."

"What do you mean?" Leo asked, skirting around the desk.

"There are thousands of files in the classified section, and most of them are just named after strings of letters and numbers. It could take weeks to find anything relating to you."

"Can you do a search for somethin' like 'turtle'?" Raph asked.

"I tried that. No luck. Either it won't search the text inside these files, or they just didn't use the word."

Something in the back of Leo's mind felt as though it had been jarred loose. "Try 410-B," he said softly.

Don gave him an odd look, but began searching. "Yeah, there's a file called 410-B," he said softly. "It's a part of something called… Project Nightshade."


	21. Chapter 21

"Nightshade," Leo repeated, feeling the word echoing through his mind. It brought to mind shafts of bluish light shining from somewhere in a dark room, shadowy figures walking past him, and snatches of words that he could barely hear. He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand.

"So what does it say about Leo?" Raph said, hunkering down beside Don.

"Well, I'm assuming 410-B is Leo," the genius said. Files and windows blossomed open on the screen in front of him, filled with blocks of text and sketches of D.N.A. "It makes references to mutations… seems to focus a lot on musculature and physiology… and to specific tests done for endurance, mental capacity, tolerance of… of some compounds I don't recognize…"

Then an X-ray popped up on the screen, and all of them stared. It was very recognizably a mutant turtle, with the human-like limbs and torso, but a large bony shell on its back, six fingers, four toes and a skull shaped like that of a turtle. The X-rays had been done from several angles, allowing for a complete scan of the turtle's bone structure.

"Looks like Leo, all right," Raph grunted.

"And they're labeled 410-B," Don confirmed. "He was subjected to extensive medical analysis—"

 _—tubes poking into the flesh of his arm, pumping a blue fluid into him—_

"—several forms of stress—"

 _—his breath coming in gasps as he felt those cold hands sliding over his body—_

"—and something called Dusk."

 _—"Begin the infusion. If he survives…"—_

For a moment the room swam around Leo, and the light of the computer seemed to dim. He pressed his hand to his forehead and leaned heavily on Don's chair.

"Leo," Mikey said from somewhere far away. "Guys, he's getting all weird again. Leo, are you falling over?"

"No, I'm fine," Leo said, rubbing his hand over his eyes.

He felt a little sick — not just from the half-formed memories, but at the thought of those people doing things to his body against his will, and coldly collecting data from what they learned. He felt — he groped around for the word to describe his feelings — _violated_. And he could only imagine what procedures were still half-forgotten in his head.

"Anything else you can get from those files, Don?" Raph asked.

"I'm not sure," Don said, his fingers clacking over the keyboard. "A lot of names for projects, people and so on are codenamed or identified by numbers, not just Leo. So when it says X12 was involved in Leo's testing, it's hard to figure out who or what this is. I can decipher it, but it would take some time."

"Time we don't have," Leo replied.

"I know. That's why I brought this," Don said, brandishing a thumb drive. "We can look at all of these project files in the comfort of our sewer sweet sewer, and can also delete the files here that involve Leo. When April and I are finished, it'll be like they never had 410-B here at all."

"I wonder who 410-A was," Mikey pondered.

Leo smiled slightly as Don plugged the drive into the computer and began furiously typing again. There was a sort of relief in hearing that these people — whoever they were — wouldn't have any information on him soon.

Still, it didn't diminish the alarming fact that they had somehow captured him in the first place, or that they might be eager to do so again once they found that their data on him had been erased. In fact, it seemed even more likely when one considered that Raph and Mikey had almost been poisoned by one of the Blue Lotus — they would be desperate to recover lost data by capturing one of the Turtles again.

They would have to be doubly careful, Leo concluded grimly. No more solo trips to the surface for awhile, not until they had reason to think that Spartan and the Blue Lotus were no longer searching for them. He knew it would drive Mikey and Raph crazy to be so restricted, but it was better than having another one of them taken and experimented on. Especially when they still didn't know what the experiments were for.

 _—"You're a strong one, aren't you?" a woman's voice murmured. "Good, very good. Don't be tense. Soon you won't feel so anxious. Just lie still and everything will be easier on you…"—_

 _—… a bright light shining on him from above. He couldn't see what was above him, but he heard machines whirring and spinning, and suddenly his thoughts seemed to liquefy inside his head—_

Leo's chest clenched, and his fingers dug into the back of the chair. "Are you almost done, Don?" he said tightly.

"I've finished downloading the files," Don said, his forehead crinkling with the effort. "Now I just have to get rid of them — and make sure that nobody can recover them when they notice they're gone—"

"Well, hurry," Raph said grimly, peering under the door, a sai clutched in each fist. "'Cause we've got some bozos comin' down the hall, and any one of 'em might notice us leavin' this place."

Leo felt himself tensing as faint voices grew louder, and shadows appeared under the door — feet walking across the thinly-carpeted floor. Raph crouched beside the door like a tiger waiting to strike, his eyes gleaming faintly in the half-light of the computer. Mikey was directly behind him, his nunchaku already in his hands, a look of strain on his face.

"… and we should let the general know that the project has suffered a setback," one of the voices said.

"There's no need for that just yet," an oily voice replied.

Leonardo felt as though he had touched a live wire. He knew that voice.

 _—"This may be the one we're looking for…"—_

"We have to get out of here," he whispered, half to himself.

"Correct," the other voice said, sounding worried. "We haven't got any choice. But if we don't find it—"

"We'll worry about that if and when the time comes," the oily voice interrupted. "Now then, you were going to show me…"

The voices faded away with the shadows under the door, leaving Leo feeling vaguely unclean, as though the second voice had left a dirty residue on his skin. He crept closer, listening for any sign that someone out there might hear them, but there was no sound except for the faint whirring of the ventilation system.

When the outside hall was silent again, he heard the soft tapping of computer keys behind him, showing that Don was back to work.

"Man, that was close," Mikey said, slumping against the wall.

"Really close," Leo said tensely. "Donnie, how much longer?"

"Almost there," Don said, his eyes wide and luminous from the glowing computer screen. Then a strange expression rippled across his face, and he glanced up at the wall beside them. Leo followed his gaze, and felt his blood suddenly turn to ice.

There was a camera on the wall.

"Shell, they know we're here," Don whispered.


	22. Chapter 22

The halls were still empty, but Leo knew that within seconds they would be swarming with security — in his frantic mind, he thought he could hear their footsteps already. He charged into the stairwell and slid down the railing, jumping easily down to the next level before sliding down again. He could hear Raph directly behind him, with Mikey and Don just behind.

"I knew this was gonna blow up in our faces," Mikey groaned.

"We'll have time for I-told-you-sos later," Leo said grimly, landing with a thump on the ground floor. "Right now we have to get out of here alive."

He kicked open the door and charged out onto the grassy expanse in front of the building, hearing his heart pounding in his ears like a drum. For a moment he thought that they might be able to vault the wall before someone got close enough to cause trouble…

… but then he saw them. Black-clad figures arrayed in a fan-shaped pattern directly in front of the door. Leo wasn't sure how many there are, but he saw at least four or five dozen. Some of them were men clad in black suits, holding odd-looking, blunt-nosed guns that gleamed in the faint light from atop the wall, their faces grim and stark.

The rest were ninja, masked and clad in darkest colors, each one with a blue lotus embroidered over his or her chest. They shifted into fighting stances, shuriken suspended between their fingers.

 _You've been here before,_ a voice seemed to whisper inside Leo's head. He could feel every eye in the yard fixed on him and his brothers, each with the cold detachment of a scientist catching an escaped rat. His hands clutched the hilts of his katanas, ready to leap into motion.

"So we gonna fight our way out or what?" Raph growled, his sai already in hand.

"I don't think we have a choice," Don said hesitantly.

One of the suit-wearing men stepped forward, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses and his face settled into an expression of profound disinterest. Leo had no idea what kind of person wore sunglasses at night, but the man probably did it for the effect. He lowered his weapon, and watched the Turtles patiently.

"Terrapin creatures," he said loudly. "We are giving you the option of surrendering yourselves into our custody. Do so, and you will be treated well. Resist, and—"

"Head for the wall!" Leo bellowed, leaping towards the man.

Blasts of energy roared past his head as he dodged and wove his way past some of the security personnel, his feet lightly darting over the grass. One blast nearly sent one of his swords flying from his hand, and wrenched him off balance. As he regained it, he felt rather than saw someone looming up behind him, a kunai knife in hand.

He ducked at the last second, hearing the weapon sing out in the air above his head. He swung his sword at the ninja behind him, twisting around to face him, only to feel one of the energy blasts hammer into his shell.

It was like nothing he had experienced — while the force of it seemed to be blunted by his bony carapace, he felt crackles of electricity moving through the muscles of his left arm, seizing the limb in a numbing grip. Gritting his teeth, he swung back towards the security guard and lashed out with his right arm, slicing the weapon neatly in half.

"It's some kind of stun gun!" Donnie shouted at that moment. "Don't let it hit you!"

"Really? I was looking forward to that," Mikey said.

As usual, the youngest Turtle was flipping and leaping through the crowds of enemies, deftly dodging the stun blasts with twists of his flexible body. Leo couldn't hold back a burst of admiration for his brother's natural skill, even if he was jumping around with his tongue hanging out mockingly. His nunchaku lashed out, knocking the stun weapons aside and throwing some of the men holding them to the grassy ground.

But he had almost forgotten the Blue Lotus. One of them leaped into the air and seized Mikey by the ankle, yanking him down and cracking him against the ground shell-first. A sai swung down towards his face, and Mikey barely dodged it in time, before kicking the ninja in the ribs and scrambling back to his feet.

"Take them alive!" a voice roared above the sounds of combat.

Raphael was tearing through the ranks of the Blue Lotus, his sai lashing out in circles of whirling steel. But Leo could see he was going to be overwhelmed soon — the Lotus ninja were snaking around his limbs, locking his joints and immobilizing him with their bodies. Raph had apparently just realized it too, and was doing his best to tear away from the ninja who were threatening to overwhelm him.

Leo gritted his teeth and leaped towards his half-captive brother, bringing his katana sweeping down towards one of the Blue Lotus. But though the man seemed entirely focused on Raph, he swung an arm clutching a katana towards Leo, slicing the air ahead of his face… and Leo could see that he hadn't extended his arm all the way. He had missed deliberately.

 _They're holding back,_ he realized with horror. _They're not trying to kill us… they're trying to capture us uninjured._

He cracked the hilt of his katana against the head of a ninja twisting back Raph's arm, allowing his brother to spring free and jump to a safe distance. "Thanks, Leo," Raph said breathlessly, leaping upward and kicking down another ninja who was trying to cut him off. "These guys get real clingy."

Don seemed to be struggling with his enemies, trying to ward off the stun blasts with his bo as he fended away the Blue Lotus ninjas. Leo could see that his brother was sweating as he tried to dodge the blows from all sides, spinning his weapon and lashing out at anyone who came too close.

And then something glinting flew through the air. Leonardo realized what it was just a second too late — one of the poison darts — and saw it bury itself in the flesh of Donatello's arm.

"Ah!" Don cried out.

"Donnie!" Leo shouted, lunging toward his brother.

The dart slipped from his arm to the ground, empty and spent, and Leo felt a gut-wrenching rage in him as he saw that his brother had been poisoned already. Don fell to his knees, his eyes strangely blank and unseeing, even as his hand groped around his midsection for something — the autoinjector, Leo realized. If he could just get a little closer, he could help Don — make sure he got the antitoxin —

But Don's foes were already swarming around him — two of the ninja seized his arms and twisted them back behind his shell, while one more pushed his head downwards. He was visibly struggling, but seemed too weak and dazed to resist.

Leo's face twisted into a snarl as he leaped towards those ninja, raising his swords to knock them aside—

FOOM!

—only to feel a blast of crackling energy strike him in the side, sending him sprawling across the grass. He had left himself wide open by not keeping an eye on his surroundings…

"Leo!" he heard Raph shout, seemingly from very far away.

Leo tried to raise his head, tried to force his limbs to carry him back upright, to grab Don and get out of there before they were all captured. But it felt like every muscle in his body was twisting out of his control, stiff and unmoving. He clawed at his fallen katana, trying desperately to get it before someone saw him fall and realized he had been hit…

"Welcome back, 410-B," a voice above him said.

And then another blast struck him, and he knew no more.


	23. Chapter 23

The first thing he was aware of was cold air — so cold it almost felt like winter wind. He shivered and curled in on himself, wondering who had left the freezer open and when they would close it again… probably Mikey, he was probably having ice cream late at night…

Then he heard a faint moan from somewhere nearby. Don.

And then the memories of what had happened flooded back into Leo's head, hard and fast enough that he gasped, feeling a splitting pain in his head. His nerves and muscles still felt like they had been jangled loose, and he felt tiny shooting pains piercing his joints, weakening his limbs. He pushed against the sandy ground under his body, trying to heave himself back to his feet despite the aftereffects of the stun gun.

His mind buzzed with the memory of what he had to do — Don… he had to find Don… he remembered that Don had been hit by one of those poisoned darts, and he hadn't been able to stop them…

"Welcome back, 410-B," a deep voice said from somewhere above him.

Leo stiffened, raising his head. Blue-white light was cascading through the darkness around him, illuminating the place where he was crouched on his hands and knees.

Then he saw Don — lying on his side in another circle of blue-white light, motionless and curled in on himself. His arms were pressed against his plastron, and his head was resting against the sandy floor. He looked… sickly, with a pallor to his olive-green skin that didn't belong there.

"Don!" Leo breathed, crawling towards his brother as fast as he could. "Don, can you hear me?"

Don barely reacted to his voice, except to roll slightly towards Leo and moan again. One of his hands fell to the ground and clutched at the sand convulsively, as if he were trying to dig his way out of his pain. Leo grasped that hand and held it tightly, hoping that Don knew he was there — for comfort, if nothing else.

"Don't worry, 410-B," the voice boomed from overhead. "He's quite alive. We have no intention of allowing such a valuable specimen to expire, especially in this stage of the project."

"Leo," Don groaned, his eyes still firmly shut. "The antitoxin…"

Leo's heart leapt as he remembered what Don had given them all before their departure from the lair. He began frantically feeling along Don's knotted belt for any telltale lumps that might be the autoinjector — something that could help him recover from the poison that had been pumped into his system. But nothing except his brother's half-conscious body seemed to be under that belt…

"Ah, the autoinjector?" the voice said, sounding amused. "Yes, you were very clever to make those. A counteragent to the Dusk toxin — that is a rather impressive achievement, particularly without the resources that we possess. You're to be commended, 410-B."

Leo's eyes narrowed, and he gritted his teeth at the condescension in the man's voice. He sounded like he was praising a somewhat intelligent dog for doing a trick.

He touched his own waist, feeling around for the autoinjector that he had stashed there during the mission. But it was missing as well. He grimaced, and slowly looked up at the darkness hanging over his head like a stormcloud. He doubted that the person speaking was actually up there, or he would have already forced his aching limbs to carry him to where they had the antitoxin. Speakers. He remembered speakers.

And Raph, and Mikey… he couldn't see any sign that they were in this entire building. Of course, he reflected grimly, that didn't mean they were still free — it might just mean they were being held captive in some other place, or perhaps were trapped and drugged in another lab, being experimented on as Leo had been.

"As a sign of good faith, 410-B," the voice said suddenly, "we will return your friend's autoinjector. With most of its contents intact, I might add."

Something small and shiny fell from the ceiling, landing on the floor with a dull thud. Leo's heart leaped, and he scrambled towards it, pulling the thin gray tube out of the sand and brushing the granules away from the end. It was definitely Donnie's autoinjector, but… a wave of apprehension ran through him as he turned it over in his hands. The voice had all but admitted that they had meddled with it somehow. The contents might be tainted with something even worse than the toxin — Dusk, the voice had called it.

Don shuddered and made a faint whimpering sound, clutching both hands to his abdomen.

For a moment, Leo weighed the options in his mind, trying to work out if they had likely tampered with the antitoxin. Finally he steeled himself, raised the autoinjector over his head, and brought it down on Don's thigh as hard as he could.

His brother stiffened and his eyes flew open, and a loud grunt came from his throat, as if the pain of the injection had startled him.

"Stay with me, Don," Leo urged him, crouching over his brother.

Don groaned loudly, huddling in on himself, grinding his face against the sand. "Hurts — like — shell," he said painfully. "At least it's — working fast—"

Leo wrapped his arms around his brother and pushed him to his knees, listening to Don hiss and groan his way through his recovery, his limbs trembling as the toxin in his system was slowly neutralized. Finally the scientist raised his head slightly, looking at Leo with bleary eyes in a still-pallid face.

"Leo?" he said faintly. "Where are we?"

"Some kind of arena," Leo said grimly. "I think I remember it from before…"

 _—"_ _Now fight, if you want to live. Begin."_

 _A roar, a screeching snarling sound ripped from a bestial throat, echoed from somewhere in the dark, nearly causing Leo to leap out of his shell. His hand automatically went to his back to grasp one of his katanas, but it closed only on empty air. Right, they had taken away his swords — he had only his martial arts skills to fall back on right now._

 _He stepped into the shadows beyond the spotlight, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He could see the edge of the arena if he strained hard enough — it looked about the size of a gymnasium, with rounded walls rising on every side, high enough to reach the ceiling. And in the distance, higher than even the walls, he saw a faint blue glow coming from a darkened window, with the shapes of humans walking around in it._

 _Then the voices were back. "410-B seems to be retreating. Perhaps he's not the specimen you expected."_

 _"_ _Have patience. He hasn't even fought yet."_

 _Something dark and slithering moved along the arena's edge, like a snake hobbling on short, quick legs. Leo crouched down close to the ground, preparing to spring —_

"No, I definitely remember it from before," Leo said, rubbing his forehead.

"Where are Raph and Mikey?" Don said blearily, looking around the darkened arena. "Do you think they made it out?"

"I don't know," Leo said. "I haven't seen them, and that voice — whoever it is — hasn't said a word about them. They may have escaped."

"Or they might just be in another room," Don said pessimistically. He still looked ill — his skin was too pale, and he still seemed to be huddled over as if his abdomen hurt. Evidently seeing Leo's concern, he sighed. "I don't think I had a high enough dose of the antitoxin. There's still some of it in my system."

"Can you walk?" Leo asked, concerned.

"I… I think so," Don said, raising himself on slightly wobbly legs. "Do you have some idea for getting out of here?"

"No," Leo said grimly, letting his brother rest against his shoulder as they began moving through the darkness. "But I'm going to come up with something."


	24. Chapter 24

The darkness in the arena seemed to swallow everything inside it, pierced only by a few shafts of equally intense light. It unnerved Leonardo — he was used to operating in the shadows, and had been ever since he was a small child and Master Splinter had been teaching him the skills of the ninja. But he preferred when the shadows were his cloak and his shield, rather than a hiding place for his enemies.

And he had no doubt that his enemies were out there. The voice on the loudspeaker could technically come from anywhere, but Leo had a sense for it. The man speaking was nearby — maybe above them, judging by which way the autoinjector had fallen.

Don grunted softly beside him, pressing his hand against his stomach. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.

"Do you need to rest?" Leo asked, concerned.

"Just—for a minute," Don said, sinking back against the arena wall.

Leo unthinkingly placed himself in front of his ailing brother. He wasn't sure if there was anything in the arena with them — it was certainly dark enough that there could be — but he was taking no chances. Not until they knew what they were up against, or why they were being kept here.

Medical experiments. Fighting strange creatures in an arena. What exactly was the reason for them being kept here? Leonardo felt a rush of frustration as he tried to put together the possible reasons there could be to do both things at the same time. He could understand them being captured for study, or forced to use their fighting skills for some reason. But why both?

"Leo," Don said suddenly.

"Yeah?"

"I hear something."

Leo stiffened. He strained to hear anything in the silence around him, even closing his eyes to heighten his other senses. But the air was still, and the only sound he could make out was the faint, grimy noise of Don shifting in the sand. Frowning, he turned around.

"Where?" he whispered.

"Behind me."

Leo wasted no time in making his way to the wall, and pressing his ear against the polished surface. He listened carefully, and heard something faint — a noise like air blowing from a fan, perhaps part of a ventilation system. And then there was something else on the edge of his consciousness, less heard and more sensed — a clicking sound, unnervingly sounding like the clack of bones striking one another. Then something rushed past, like a curtain being pulled along a rod.

"I think I hear it," he said softly, moving along the wall to follow the clicking noise. "I don't-"

"410-B and 411-A," the voice said in a pleasantly conversational tone, as if discussing the weather. "The next stage of the project is now underway, in case you were wondering."

"I guess they've decided what my number will be," Don said darkly.

"We aren't going to be here long enough for them to really use it," Leo said, all steely optimism.

"411-A's initial testing will begin in short order, after the conclusion of this exercise. This exercise also serves as a more advanced analysis of your abilities, 410-B." The voice sounded insufferably pleasant to Leo's ears; he would almost have preferred the gravelly snarl of the Shredder to this detached, amiable-sounding voice calling them by numbers and planning out how they were going to be "tested."

"Maybe I should try to get them to talk to us, see if we can figure out what they want," Leo said, bracing his feet in the shifting sand.

"Leo, they probably can't hear us unless we shout," Don pointed out, leaning back against the wall. "And you notice that they haven't actually responded to anything we've said, only things we've done. They may not have an audio feed."

"On the contrary, 411-A. We hear you quite well," the voice boomed over the loudspeaker.

Don seemed to sag at that, his eyes downcast, and Leo was tempted to join him. That took away a lot of possibilities for escape — there was no point in conspiring to escape if their captors knew everything that they were planning.

But escape had to be possible. Leo knew he had done it before, and he just needed to figure out how to break free again, with Don accompanying him this time. Perhaps it would be easier because Don was with him, he thought — if they came across any kind of technological barriers or obstacles, the genius turtle could get them past it…

Assuming he could stand for long enough, Leo thought, looking down at his brother. The Dusk was still affecting Donnie badly — he was trying to keep it together, but Leo could see that unhealthy pallor in his olive-green skin, the way he huddled forward as if his stomach was cramping. There was also a slightly glazed look in his eyes, as though he was having some difficulty didn't look like he could run even if it was their only way out, and Leo had no intention of leaving without him.

The toxin would eventually flush itself out of Don's body, that much Leo knew. But the question was whether it would happen soon enough for them to avoid the Spartan and Blue Lotus' efforts to keep them here. It had taken a long time for it to be flushed out of Leo's body.

Something touched Leo on the knee, and he glanced down to see Don solemnly poking at him, then beckoning him to crouch down. Leo squatted, and Donnie leaned in close enough to whisper against the side of his head.

"Their surveillance equipment probably isn't powerful enough to pick up whispers. We just have to be as quiet as we can when we communicate."

Leo nodded, and glanced up at the ceiling. No response this time.

"Sounds like a plan," he murmured as softly as he could.

Then he heard it again — the rustle and clicking behind the wall, so faint that it was nearly missable, but bone-chilling if it was heard. Leo moved closer to the wall, pressing his hands against the smooth surface, and listened as hard as he could, touching the side of his face to it.

Then he felt something under the fingers of his right hand — a tiny ridge, running vertically up the arena wall. A break in the otherwise unbroken surface. Was it some kind of seam, something that might be weaker than the rest of the wall and allow him to smash through to the other side?

But then again, the other side had that clicking, rustling thing in it.

Leo ran his fingers along the break, which was so subtle that his eyes still couldn't see it. As he reached over his head, he felt it slant sharply to the left, running horizontally now… Leo's eyes widened as he realized what it was. It was a door.

And then a vibration ran through his hand, a soft tremor.

"Donnie, get up!" he said urgently, backing away from the wall. His brother scrambled up from where he had been resting just as the edges of the door split away, and the halves of the door retreated into the empty space just beyond. Leo tensed, ready to spring forward and try to get out of this arena before the doors closed again… but then he heard the clicking noise, and the rush of something large and fast in the dark. The only way out was its only way in.

"Donnie, back away slowly," he said, taking a step away. If this thing entered the arena, Don would be its first target.

The voice boomed over the loudspeakers again: "410-B and 411-A, say hello to 68-G."


	25. Chapter 25

If Leonardo had had hair on the back of his neck, he knew it would have been standing on end. The clicking sound was louder than ever — growing louder by the second, until it was all he could hear. He cast a desperate look at Don, who was standing wide-eyed on the other side of the door, his hands clenched in the air, looking for a bo that wasn't there. Leonardo knew how he felt — the absence of his katanas had never been so infuriating.

He could see the shape of 68-G now — long and sinuous like a Chinese dragon, but without any of that creature's implied grace. As it moved into the light, Leo saw that it was covered in thick gray skin like a shark's. Its long scuttling legs were almost bent double, its eyes were small and fast-moving, and its face was dominated by a small mouth with long, wicked, swordlike teeth — the source of the clicking noise.

"What the shell is that?" Leo said.

"Some kind of mutant," Don said unnecessarily. "A lab-made one, like the ones in the Underground."

"411-A is correct," the voice said pleasantly. "68-G is a failed specimen from the early days of the same project, but useful for determining the capabilities of other subjects."

68-G snarled at them, and clattered its teeth in a wordless warning. Its long tail lashed at the air as it looked between the two targets, seemingly weighing which one to go after first.

Leo had no idea how intelligent 68-G was. He just prayed it was dumb.

"Over here!" he bellowed, throwing his arms over his head. "You want someone to eat? Come this way and get me!"

"Leo—" Don called out, alarmed.

Leo let out an audible shout as he raced closer to the monster, then darted around to keep its gaze focused on him. "Come on, ugly!" he shouted again, retreating to a safer distance, feeling it watching him balefully. "Think you can take me on?"

"Leo, don't—" Don tried to say, but a sudden spasm caused him to double over.

Just then the creature snarled again, its teeth clicking, and surged towards Leonardo. He immediately regretted getting that close to it, as its spindly-looking limbs moved ridiculously fast — one of the clawed feet lashed out and left gouges on the walls of the area, which Leo barely ducked from.

Breathing hard, he backed away, and flipped high in the air above the monster's head, landing lightly on the wall of the arena before flinging himself off to the other end of the arena. He landed heavily, almost slipping on the sand under his feet, but managed to catch himself just in time to turn. 68-G was climbing up the arena walls like a caterpillar, sinuously slithering towards Leo with a fierce glint in its tiny eyes.

Suddenly the voice said, "Keep an eye on 410-B. His agility is quite astonishing, especially given his physical construction."

Leo gritted his teeth, and leaped aside from another swipe. He wasn't sure what the voice meant by "physical construction," but he suspected he wouldn't like it.

Then another man's voice spoke — a deeper, richer one. "Agreed, but what about 411-A? He doesn't seem to be participating in the fight at all."

And then a woman spoke up, sounding slightly irritable. "We can hardly expect approval based on only one specimen. The results must be near-uniform."

Who were these people? Leo's mind was spinning even as his body was, leaping aside from the creature and landing fierce kicks and punches on whatever parts of its body he could reach.

"Don't worry," the first voice said soothingly. "If necessary, 410-B will be removed from the fight altogether, and we will evaluate 411-A separately. This test is partially to determine group dynamics and how effectively 410-B can strategize."

Leo sprang off the wall, curving over the creature's writhing back, and brought his fist down in its leathery gray flesh. Then he felt something strike him in the shell, and suddenly he was flying through the air, shouting in alarm, before landing in a heap in the sand—

 _—"…_ _observe his natural armor — a bony carapace that would preclude rear attacks from most conventional weapons, and a frontal torso design that would be resistant as well. Mother Nature's work, adapted for a more human frame."_

 _"_ _An interesting specimen," the woman's voice said. "But wouldn't those physical qualities also limit his fighting abilities?"_

 _"_ _Not at all. 68-G should effectively prove that…"—_

Leo gasped, feeling something jar loose in his memory. Clutching the sides of his head, he stumbled to his feet just in time to see another claw swiping down toward him. White-hot pain flashed through his shoulder as it struck, and he was sent reeling across the sand, found himself gripping the wall with both hands as he struggled to regain his bearings…

"410-B doesn't seem to be doing as well this time around," the second man's voice said.

If Leo hadn't been so consumed with trying to survive, he might have told these unseen figures off for their callous observations of his fight. They were the ones who had meddled with his head, pumped him full of poison and pitted him against a monster. Then they had the nerve to complain that he wasn't fighting well enough?

He stood his ground, digging his feet into the sand and preparing to jump again — this time he would strike at its eyes, one of its few vulnerable spots he could see, even if it was alarmingly close to its very large, sharp teeth.

Suddenly a streak of green and purple soared over 68-G's head, and Leo barely had time to turn before he saw Donnie landing feet-first on the creature's serpentine neck. He was panting heavily and still looked ill, but he was still able to fight — or at least, more than Leo was at the moment. The creature uttered a deafening, whining noise that ended in a gurgle, and started twisting around, attempting to reach Don or buck him off.

"Don!" Leo shouted, launching himself into the air. He didn't have a lot of hope of actually landing in the right place — trying to estimate where a frantic beast with a snakelike body would be in a few seconds wasn't very easy — but he had to keep his brother safe from this thing.

He landed with a hard thump and what sounded like the crack of a fractured bone, at the shoulder junction between the creature's body and its spidery limbs. It let out a shriek of pain, and began twisting around in an attempt to get to him. Long glittering teeth clashed near Leonardo's face, and he felt hot breath that stank of blood and rotten flesh on his face.

He seized a handful of the creature's gray skin and vaulted himself up to where Don was crouching, his face blanched and one of his arms over his belly. "How are you doing, bro?" Leo whispered, putting an arm around him.

"I'll be fine, assuming this thing doesn't eat us," Don responded.

But then Leo heard something else — a hissing sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. With it came a sickly-sweet odor, as if someone had left candy out in the sunlight until it melted. Alarm bells began to ring in his head.

"Don, don't—" he began to say, only to feel a heavy weight crash into his shoulder as his brother's legs failed him. Leo wrapped his arms around the half-conscious Don and leaped away from the thrashing monster, landing heavily on the sand some distance away. But rather than the light, nimble landing he was used to, he landed like a lump of falling rock, his legs suddenly nerveless and weak.

"Leo—" Don croaked. "The monster—gotta get away—"

Leo wasn't sure if he meant that they both had to get away, or whether he was urging his brother to flee without him. Desperately, he wrapped his arms around Don and tried to heave him upright, but his arms refused to cooperate, muscles turning to jelly.

"Come on—Don—" he grunted.

But his brother's eyes were already closing, and his head slumped against Leo's chest. Leo crashed down to the sandy floor, his eyes blurring as he began to slip into unconsciousness. In the distance, he heard the creature roar once more, and then stop.

Dark figures scuttled through the arena, their voices oddly mechanical, some of them holding long objects that sparked. Leo struggled to keep his eyes open, and succeeded just long enough to see the alien visage of a gas mask looming over him.


	26. Chapter 26

They had made the wrong decision. Raphael was sure of it.

They had had two choices after the Blue Lotus and those mooks with the stun guns had swarmed them — either they could flee into the night and come back later, or they could retreat into the Spartan building and find someplace to hide.

He had only had a split second to decide for himself and Mikey. He had known this when Don had collapsed, a dart in his arm filling him with poison, and Leo had dropped down in convulsions when one of those stun guns had struck him. Raph couldn't get to them — he tried to carve his way through the ranks, but the ninjas had been popping up everywhere around him, and those stun blasts had been lighting up the air around him as he tried to dance out of their way.

So, gritting his teeth and hating himself for it, he had done the only other thing he could do: grab Mikey and run back to the building. The idea running through his head was that if those goons took his brothers prisoner, then being inside meant a better chance of finding them. Right? Right.

Wrong. Raph was already regretting it. Leo would never have made that choice, he was sure.

"You think they know where we are?" Mikey whispered.

"Pipe down," Raph whispered back.

The two of them had managed to lodge themselves above the removable plates of the office ceiling. It took most their strength to hang on to the pipes that ran above them, the air ducts that rattled overhead, all without accidentally alerting anyone to their presence. That also meant keeping Mikey shut up for however long it would take, which seemed less likely with every passing minute.

Footsteps pattered down below them, and urgent voices muttered amongst themselves. Raph strained to hear, even as his muscles strained to hang on to the pipe he was suspended from.

"… checked the basement levels completely. They're not there."

"What are we hiring these Blue Lotus fools for if they can't catch another ninja?"

"They're currently combing the upper levels."

"We know they're somewhere in the building. How can it be so hard to find two mutants? It's not as if they're small!"

Raph felt a snarl uncoiling in his throat, and had to resist the urge to burst out of the ceiling and give these oily, slippery misfits a good thrashing, Turtle-style. His sai were practically begging him to use them.

"The more specimens we are able to collect, the higher the chances of the project's success. We don't even know how many of these creatures there are."

"How is our new specimen?"

"Still suffering from the effects of Dusk, which made him seem rather passive at first. He's remarkably resilient, though — he still managed to fight off 68-G despite his condition."

Raphael let his head drop down lower, listening to every word that passed. They had to be talking about Donnie.

"He's in the lab for further experimentation. The same battery of tests that 410-B went through — rather unpleasant, but necessary. They should yield a fair amount of data on what characteristics are, for lack of a better term, species-wide for them."

"Ah, 410-B — how is the prodigal specimen?"

"Recalcitrant, as always. I'm afraid we had to gas him. Again." A deep sigh. "It really is quite a shame that the memory wipe was incomplete — had it worked properly, he would have been the perfect soldier. As it is, I suspect we only gave him some minor memory issues."

"What are you doing with him now?"

"He's being kept in the same laboratory as 411-A. Since all the biological testing on him has been completed, there remains the other tests of his personal attributes, such as loyalty."

"Just don't let those two get away. They're far too valuable."

"Then find the other two, and perhaps we'll be able to move the project forward ahead of schedule."

The voices faded away as the sound of footsteps rang out below. Raphael gripped the pipe more tightly, and was able to swing himself up on top of it, straddling it.

"They're keeping Don and Leo in a lab?" Mikey whispered. "Dude, I've had nightmares that start that way."

"Me too, Mikey," Raph grunted. "So we better find 'em before anything else happens in that lab."

"What do you think they meant by all that stuff?" Mikey continued, resting his head on the air duct. "About Leo being the perfect soldier?"

"I'm startin' to get an idea," Raph whispered grimly. "First we gotta find a place to hide—"

"I thought we had that."

"Would you shut up? Someplace to hide where we ain't hanging from the ceiling," Raph snapped. "Then we grab some idiot and make him tell us where they're keepin' Leo and Don."

"What about those Blue Lotus guys?" Mikey said, starting to slide down from the air duct.

"We can take 'em on as long as those guys with the stun guns ain't there," Raph said grimly. "Let's go."

He listened for a few minutes to the silence below, except for the faint whirring of the air duct under Mikey. Then he knocked the panel out from under himself, and slithered down to the carpet. The hall was deserted, but he knew that could change at any moment — especially if there were any security cameras around the place.

"Come on, Mikey," he called up as Mikey inched down towards him. "We got maybe two minutes before those idiots figure out where we were."

They ran silently and swiftly through the halls, staying close to the walls and only pausing in shadowy spaces where few could see them. There didn't seem to be any cameras in this area — none that Raph could see, anyway. But he kept his eyes open for them anyway.

As they reached the stairwell, Raph paused. Heavy footfalls on the stairs, echoing through the cavernous space. Voices, trying to be quiet but echoing just as loudly.

"Hide," he ordered, turning and pushing Mikey into the janitor's closet.

It wasn't the best hiding place — it was pitch black, it smelled of bleach and oil, and Raph could feel that his foot had landed in something squishy and wet. Even worse, they were crammed in so tightly against one another that if they were found, they wouldn't have the space to fight. Shell, he thought darkly, they wouldn't even have the space to jump out without tripping over a bucket and two brooms.

"—check every room on this floor. And if you don't find them here, we'll move on and sweep the next floor. They're somewhere in the building, so find them."

Raph gritted his teeth, and tried to wiggle his hands over to his sai. They were going to get caught — possibly any minute now, given how close they were to the janitor's closet. And if those guys had stun guns, the two of them might be ending up in a lab with Leo and Don.


	27. Chapter 27

Donatello awoke to a bright light shining directly over his head, burning his eyes. He turned his head away instinctively, and found himself looking at a wall of pitch-blackness that seemed to rise on every side of him — a room so dark that the only light was a spotlight aimed down at him. He couldn't see anything in the darkness, not even the outline of shapes.

He seemed to be lying on a gurney of some kind, and his wrists and ankles were tightly cuffed to its sides — arms extended, legs slightly spread. He strained against the cuffs, testing their limits… and fell back, breathing hard as he found that they wouldn't even budge. Maybe they would be escapable if he could shift them up and down the sides of the gurney…

"Analysis of 411-A to begin now."

A woman's voice rang out from the darkness, making Don stiffen. He turned his head toward the sound, and saw a woman in a lab coat step into the ring of light, holding a clipboard. She was attractive in a careless sort of way, glasses resting on the tip of her pert nose and her long brown hair pinned up with a pencil.

And beside her was a Blue Lotus ninja. Don gripped the bars of the gurney, wishing he could put up a fight if the ninja tried anything.

"You can wait outside," the woman said carelessly, waving a hand at the ninja. "If he escapes, I'll need you to subdue and recapture him alive, but that's unlikely to happen. Otherwise your services won't be needed."

The ninja bowed slightly, and stepped back into the darkness.

The woman turned back towards Don, and set her clipboard down. She glanced over her shoulder at something he couldn't see, and announced, "Beginning physical examination of subject 411-A. Subject is a male mutant of indeterminate age, though estimation would put him in late adolescence."

She looked down at Don, and a smile crossed her face. "Well well, what do we have here?" she murmured, running her fingers down his plastron almost sensually. "External armor is well-developed, similar in depth and design to 410-B. Dorsal region is covered by a bone carapace that appears resistant to penetration. Ventral region has a more flexible, less resilient form of body armor." Her cool fingers probed his sides, making Don flinch and squirm. "Laterals are unarmored."

"Don't touch me," Don said, trying his best to jerk away from her hands.

Her smile widened. "Such a handsome young man. Just relax and lie back, and this will be over before you know it." She glanced over her shoulder again, then began palpating his sides with her hands, before moving back to his plastron. "Ventral armor extends from groin to approximately the clavicle. No indications of discomfort when probed."

Her fingers trailed down to the bottom of his plastron, and Don's breath caught in his throat as he tried again to squirm away from her. But her hands bypassed his groin and instead gripped his thighs, and with a strange businesslike air, she began kneading the muscles as if she were giving him a massage. "As with 410-B, 411-A has well-defined musculature comparable to a human's, though certainly more developed than average. He appears to be quite the athlete."

Then another voice spoke from the darkness. "Footage of him in the arena shows his superior physical capabilities."

"I know that," the woman said rather snippily, continuing to knead his thighs. Don hated that the woman's ministrations actually felt good, relaxing. "However, I am observing directly rather than integrating outside information on the subject."

The woman finished with his thighs and moved her hands down to his calf muscles, which she cupped in one hand as she probed and palpated with the other. His attempts to struggle resulted in little movement — his ankle was firmly locked against a metal bar, and the most he could do was wiggle his leg slightly.

"Subject's musculature appears denser than that of a human, perhaps allowing for greater strength and endurance," she said thoughtfully.

Don flinched as her fingers found a tender spot on his leg.

"Some bruising is present from encounter with 68-G," she added. "Subject exhibits pain when the area is touched."

She finally let go of his leg, and moved up to one of his bound arms. Don closed his eyes as she began running her fingers over his biceps, pressing hard into his arm muscles as she had to his leg. Then she moved on to his elbows, gently flexing the joint as far as it was able to go while being cuffed. She seemed fascinated by his body, but he had no idea why — especially if she had already seen Leo's. He and his brothers were all physically very similar, thanks to a lifetime of hard training.

Leo. The last he remembered of his brother, he had been holding Don as he succumbed to the gas. Where was he? What were they doing to him now? More anxiety ran through Don as he thought of his brother, and how much he had suffered in this place before.

She seized one of his hands and forced his clenched fingers open, running her fingertips over his open palm. "Subject possesses a thumb and two fingers on each hand. This is not the result of a birth defect or surgical intervention, but appears to be the normal physiological structure for both 410-B and 411-A. Whether this has resulted in a loss of dexterity is unknown, though the weapons found on their persons would indicate not."

"Where's my brother?" Don said hoarsely. "Where's Leo?"

Her hands were suddenly around his throat, her face looming over him, and for one alarming moment he wondered if she was going to choke him. But instead she felt around his trachea and the tendons in his neck with her thumbs, murmuring, "Very nice…just lie still, and this will be over soon."

She raised one hand from his throat and unexpectedly hooked a finger under his mask. Don blinked and squirmed again, trying to thrash his head from side to side to keep her from taking it, but suddenly her hand had turned to iron around his throat, keeping him from moving.

"Now don't be like that," she said in a soothing, slightly reproving voice, as if speaking to a naughty child. "You've been such a good boy so far. We're nearly done with the examination, but I need to look at your eyes for that to happen. Now lie still, and I promise I will be as gentle as possible."

She easily pulled the mask from his face, letting it fall behind his head. Don squinted against the light blazing down on him from above, but the woman's fingers closed around his eye and pulled his eyelids apart as she shone a small red light into his pupil. A low groan escaped him, and he found himself squirming again at the discomfort that came with it.

The woman eventually released his eye, and Don shut his eyes tightly, trying to put off the inevitable. It happened anyway — she pried his other eye open, making him feel as if his retinas were burning off under the bright, piercing lights. His wrists and ankles strained against the cuffs as he wondered how long this would take…

"There, all finished," she said, releasing his eyelids. "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Please," Don groaned, "I need to see my brother."

The woman just smiled tolerantly, as if he had said something adorable that she was going to humor. She turned back towards the darkness, and announced, "Biologically, there is minimal difference between 411-A and 410-B — there is a small amount of difference in musculature, which may be the result of their different weapons."

"The capture of the other two mutants will allow for the conclusive determination of whether they are appropriate for Nightshade. This could be the break we're waiting for," the other voice said.

The other two mutants? That meant that Raph and Mikey were still free, wherever they were. Don sagged back against the gurney in relief, wondering if this meant they had a small chance of being rescued.

Then he felt the woman's hand on his plastron again. "You're a fine specimen, 411-A. Very well-built," she said approvingly, giving his belly another caress. Then her face shifted into a mask of regret. "But I'm afraid we need more data than a mere physical examination can provide. Don't worry, I'll be as gentle as possible."

He saw a flash of silver in her hand as she raised it over his abdomen, and slowly, painstakingly slid a thick needle between the scutes of his plastron. A deep, hot pain blossomed inside him, and all he could do was cry out.


	28. Chapter 28

**Time for me to freak out! One amazing reader, Symon, created this amazing and beautiful fan art for Nightshade!**

 **1-800-fuckmylife. tumblr post/173815186290/some-fanart-for-this-super-amazing-fic-and**

 **And I am so grateful.**

* * *

Raph felt an elbow strike his gut, and for once he wasn't able to make noise or lash out at who had done it. He and Michelangelo were crammed into the closet like a pair of sardines, and he could already feel muscles cramping and twitching from the effort of staying stiff and upright without moving. The smell of bleach and dirty water wasn't helping.

"Dude," Mikey grunted. "I can't feel my legs."

"Suck it up, Mikey," Raph responded compassionately.

The voices and footsteps were still coming from outside, making Raph tense even further. He was already regretting everything about this mission — sneaking into a top-secret building — going back inside when Leo and Don were captured — climbing into a closet the size of a dollhouse —

Was there any other thing that could happen to ruin this day?

"Check every door, check every room thoroughly," that authoritative voice called out.

Then the doorknob rattled. Raph's stomach nearly turned itself inside out, and he frantically tried to calculate how many seconds it would take, after falling flat on the floor, for him to rise and start kicking butt. However many it took, it would be too long for his taste. Then Mikey's elbow jabbed him in the stomach again. He hissed loudly, half in pain and half in protest, and wished that they weren't so crammed in so he could smack Mikey in the head.

"Chill, Raph," Mikey whispered, and locked his hand around the inner doorknob.

It rattled again, and Raph heard the lock clicking. But he also felt Mikey's arm muscles tensing, and saw his handle tremble slightly as he pulled the door inward, keeping it from opening. A small smile crossed Raph's face.

"It's jammed," a voice said, sounding irritated.

"Here, let me try," another voice said. Mikey's arm tensed again, and Raph felt him brace against a stronger attempt to pull the door open. With a faint grunt, Raph managed to free his own arm from where it had been wedged against his body, and hooked his fingers on the knob directly under Mikey's. The door pulled even harder, but he poured all the power he could into the muscles of his arm, his hand, his fingers. That door was not going to open, he vowed.

"Still jammed," the first voice said. "Either that or the key doesn't work."

"Leave it. We'll call up someone from the janitorial staff and have them get the stupid thing open. On to the next—"

There was a flurry of activity somewhere nearby, and a third, gasping voice called out, "Sir, we found something — they may be up in the ceiling. Someone found some of the ceiling tiles pulled loose."

Not anymore, chumps, Raphael thought. He shifted towards the door, ready to spring out the moment that they were gone.

Footsteps rang out dully on the thin carpeting as many different people rushed away at the same time, and voices murmured in excitement as they faded away. Raphael extended his neck as far as he could, pressing the side of his head against the door, and waited until the corridor outside was completely silent to let himself relax.

"Well, Mikey, you finally had a good idea," Raph whispered, feeling a grin cross his face.

"Finally you recognize my genius," Mikey responded with a grin of his own.

With a loud grunt, the younger Turtle twisted the doorknob, and the door swung open with a loud creak. Raph pushed himself out into the corridor with all his strength, popping out a few steps ahead of Mikey, his muscles still cramped and clumsy. Quickly he glanced up and down the hall, alert for anything they might have to run from — but the only thing he saw was a few dark shapes retreating in the distance. They were free and clear — at least for the moment. Possibly only a moment.

"I think I have a leg cramp," Mikey groaned.

"Walk it off," Raph ordered. "We gotta find Leo and Don."

He pushed open the door to the stairwell and peered out into it, listening for echoing footsteps anywhere above or below. There was nothing except the soft slap of Raphael's bare feet on the steel steps as he headed down, with Mikey just a few steps behind him. They leaped silently down the stairs from floor to floor, checking downwards each time to make sure nobody was in their way.

"Where are we going?" Michelangelo asked in the world's loudest whisper.

"The basement. Chuckles up there said that they'd already finished sweepin' the basement, so we're goin' there."

"And then what?"

"After we catch our breath," Raph said grimly, "we're gonna start lookin' for anything that looks like a lab. Or an arena. Or anyplace that looks like it might have a coupla mutant turtles in it."

A door opened somewhere in the stairwell, and voices suddenly echoed through the empty chamber. Raph grimaced, looking up, and saw something dark moving above them.

"Time to get to our destination," he whispered.

He launched himself onto the railing that ran along the stairs, sliding and skidding down the cold metal with every passing floor. He no longer checked the levels he was passing — they didn't have time to waste. He'd just kick the butts of anyone they encountered.

The very bottom of the stairs led to a heavy, steel-plated door with a heft lock, but Raph jammed his sai into the lock. It made more noise than he wanted as he ripped the inner mechanism apart, but it got the job done — the door swung open gently, allowing the two Turtles inside. The concrete-lined room just past them was dominated by a massive boiler that glowered over them like a massive metal idol.

Mikey collapsed against it, and heaved a sigh. "So now what?"

"Now we start explorin' this building."

"Raph, this doesn't seem like a good idea. I mean, we're in a giant building, looking for two people who could be anywhere. And oh yeah, there are hundreds of people looking for us, including ninjas, which means we're gonna get caught sooner or later. Plus this place has, like, a zillion rooms and most of them aren't gonna have Don and Leo in them."

"So what are you sayin'? You wanna give up?" Raph snarled.

"No, I'm just saying we can't go from door to door. We have to be smart."

Raph gritted his teeth. He hated to admit it, but Mikey had a point. Everything in their little mission had gone wrong so far, and he had absolutely no reason to assume things would start going right now. He slid down next to the boiler, grasped his own skull and tried to get his brain in order.

"So what do you think we should do, then?" he said at last.

Mikey tilted his head and closed one eye. "Probably think about what Donnie and Leo would do. If they were here, I mean. I don't know what Leo would do, but I'm betting Donnie would be trying to use the computer to locate the labs, right? I mean, they gotta have a floorplan or something of this building, right?"

"Too bad we don't have one," Raph said darkly.

"What about April? We can still contact her."

Raph pulled out his Shell Cell and stared at it, his brow crinkling as he thought about what April could do. Without Don, they were severely handicapped… but if April could help them out at a distance, using her computer skills…

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud clanking noise, and the sound of rusty hinges swinging open. Raph stiffened, his fingers tightening around his Shell Cell and his other hand going to one of his sai. He could hear footsteps, but only barely — whisper-soft and catlike in the darkened room, as smooth as a breeze.

Ninja. The Blue Lotus had found them.


	29. Chapter 29

The first thing Leo became aware of when he woke was that his muscles felt unnaturally tight, as though his entire body was clenching up. His breaths were coming shallowly, as the muscles in his chest seemed to be too tight, too twisted for him to breathe properly. He tried to stretch himself out, but everything felt painfully taut, like a bowstring about to snap…

He was lying on a cold, hard surface, which smelled faintly of metal and disinfectant. Groaning faintly, he rolled forward and tried to brace his elbows against the ground, but something clinked and pulled at his arms.

One eye opened slightly. It took a few minutes of straining and stretching before he could bring his fists into his line of sight, but he was rewarded by the sight of stainless-steel chains around his arms, with thin shackles wrapped around his wrists.

"I do believe 410-B is coming around," a voice said conversationally.

Leo stiffened, and forced his aching neck to lift his head. He was lying on what looked like an examination table, with the chains embedded in bolts attached to the sides. The room was mostly dark, but if he raised his eyes towards the high, vaulted ceiling, he could see a darkened window set in the wall, like a panoramic window that looked into the building instead of out. Four or five dark shapes moved behind the tinted glass, and he had the uneasy feeling that they were looking at him.

"Where's my brother?" he said hoarsely. "Where's Donnie?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, 410-B. You have enough to deal with yourself right now."

"The shell with that," Leo said through gritted teeth, stretching his legs as far as they would move, his cramped muscles protesting with every motion. It had to be the gas, he thought. Maybe he was allergic to it — Donnie would know, if he was here —

 _— "…_ _an unfortunate reaction, but there's no lasting damage," the voice above him said, as cold fingers probed his side. "He'll be back in fighting form in no time."_

 _"_ _Speaking of fighting," a gravelly voice said, "when are we going to see what he's really capable of?"_

 _"_ _As soon as he's recovered. We already have two ninja lined up as his first opponents, and we'll be able to gauge how effective his strength, natural body armor and martial experience make him as a potential soldier."_

 _"_ _Good. Be sure to record the results. The more data, the better. We'll have him show us his stuff…" —_

The memory crashed into Leo's head like a bullet, and for an agonizing moment he thought he was going to throw up. But as he gasped and clutched at his chains, his stomach lurching inside him, he felt puzzle pieces starting to click into place inside his head. He still didn't have the whole picture of what was going on here, but he knew enough that it was beginning to make sense.

Soldier? Was that what this was all about — making him into some kind of soldier? Suddenly the random words and comments made in his broken memories began to seem more purposeful — they had spoken of testing his fighting ability, of his carapace and plastron as natural body armor, analyzed his strategic method of combat…

And what had Don said before? Something about the Spartan Conglomerate having a lot of weapons research, and government contracts. Was it that far a stretch to imagine that they would try to produce mutant soldiers as well, if they thought they could? If those soldiers had the strength, skill and resilience that the four brothers had — if they had shells to protect them during a fight, and greater physical power than any human?

Leonardo gritted his teeth. So that was why they had tried to capture all four of them, why they had practically turned him inside out with their tests and experiments, why they had pitted him against monsters in that arena.

It also meant that he had to find Don as quickly as possible.

"You're wasting your time," he shouted.

There was no response, but he could see that the figures above had not moved from their little room.

"If you want to manufacture mutant soldiers, you're out of luck. My brothers and I are the only ones," he called out, now that he knew he had their undivided attention. "And the stuff that made us this way doesn't exist on Earth any longer."

Still no response, but he could see the figures moving around now, some looking quite agitated. That was good, he thought. It meant they at least were considering the idea that he was telling the truth.

Unfortunately he doubted that they would believe it that easily. In their eyes, he had too much motivation to lie in order to get himself and Don out of their current predicament, especially if it got the Spartan Conglomerate and the Blue Lotus off their shells. Plus, they clearly were planning something big for this Project Nightshade, and probably wouldn't be willing to accept failure due to a pesky problem like not having the means to produce mutant soldiers, or not having a sufficient number of them to produce an army.

What really worried him was that they would actually be able to find some kind of useful information from his mutant body — something that would allow them to produce mutants of their own. Maybe through cloning or genetic engineering — something like that. He'd have to ask Don… whenever he managed to see Don again.

He just hoped Mikey and Raph were still free. If their brothers were free, there was a chance that he and Don might be rescued — although he wasn't particularly confident in that. The Blue Lotus were still in the building, and Mikey and Raph would have a rough time with them, as skilled as they were. Or perhaps they had fled the area to regroup and plan some kind of rescue. He hoped that was what had happened.

He lay there for what seemed like an eternity, watching the figures move and seemed to be having some kind of debate, probably about whether he was telling the truth.

Finally, the voice from before spoke grimly.

"410-B is to be examined further. Terminate current protocol and remove the specimen to the medical laboratory."

"What? No!" Leo exclaimed, lurching against his chains. The half-remembered memories of being experimented on came flooding into his head — needles, cold groping hands, strange fluids being pumped into his veins — and all he could think of was making sure that it didn't happen again.

Then again, he thought with a grimace, he might encounter Don if they were taken to the same place. He hoped his brother was all right — he had looked pretty sick in the arena, despite his efforts to take down 68-G. The antitoxin hadn't been enough — but perhaps they had their own antitoxin and might use it on him. Might. Leo wasn't particularly confident in that, given how badly he had been doing when he returned home.

Somewhere behind him, a heavy door opened and shut, and he heard the squeak of wheels and rattle of a steel frame moving toward him. And footsteps.

A hand settled on his shoulder, and a woman's cool, smooth voice said, "Hello, 410-B. Nice to see you again."

He grunted as something sharp jabbed him in the upper arm, seconds before the world went black and he sagged down onto the tabletop. The last thing he heard was, "Get those chains off him. Cuff him to the gurney."


	30. Chapter 30

Raph's hand clamped over Mikey's mouth before his little brother could make a sound — and it was Mikey, so he was sure to make some kind of noise that the Blue Lotus could hear. They needed to remain as silent and still as they could — even the slightest sound or move could expose them. And as much as Raph wanted to lunge out and start slashing at things with his sai, he knew that they had to know more about what was going on first.

Right now, all Raphael could hear was the whisper-soft footfalls. He might not have been able to hear that much if the room hadn't echoed.

Two long shadows spread across the floor, barely visible in the dark room, followed by two blotches of inky blackness shaped like human beings. Raph's hand tightened on Mikey's mouth, just in case his brother was tempted to make a sound.

 _Don't even think about it,_ he thought, hoping Mikey could read his mind.

The two ninja had somehow not noticed them yet, perhaps because they were crouched against the massive boiler. But as they roamed through the room, peering around debris and old boxes, Raphael stiffened. They were going to find them sooner or later — probably sooner — and Raph would only have a brief interlude of surprise when they did.

Time to strike before their enemies had a chance to strike first.

He made a few sharp hand gestures at the ninjas, and hoped Mikey understood what he meant. His brother nodded solemnly, only his eyes visible above Raph's hand, and brandished his nunchaku.

Some people who knew Raphael thought that he wasn't really capable of stealth the way someone like Leonardo was. That wasn't true. He just preferred to brawl loudly and in the open rather than being all shadows and stealth — if he had the motivation, he could be as subtle in his movements as his older brother.

And now was definitely the right time. He slipped along the edge of the boiler, sticking to the shadows and keeping his footsteps completely silent. Fade into the surroundings, he told himself sternly. Just like Splinter had taught him over the years. His hands tightened on the pommels of his sai, and he raised them as he approached the broad back of the ninja…

… only to feel the air slice beside his cheek as a shuriken nearly struck him.

"Shell!" he roared, lunging forward and jabbing one hand at the ninja's face. He caught a glimpse of angry dark eyes in a black-swathed face as the Blue Lotus ninja dodged him, and immediately retaliated by aiming a nerve strike at Raphael's bicep.

"Can I make noise now, Raph?" Mikey said, spinning past him towards the second ninja.

"Make as much as you want, Mikey!" Raph responded, swiping wide with his sai.

This ninja was a tough customer — much harder than the Foot Clan ninja Raph had fought in the past, who tended to be pretty easy to hit and pretty easy to knock down, in his experience. This guy was tough and flexible as an eel, squirming out of the way of each blow before lashing out with his own sharp, vicious blows.

A kick caught Raph in the side, making him yelp and stagger sideways, and before he could attack again he was warding off blows from nunchaku. Not Mikey's, but ones that the Blue Lotus ninja had seemingly pulled out of his butt — and judging by the way they were lashing out, the guy was an expert in their use.

"Raph, this guy's pretty good!" Mikey shouted, narrowly avoiding a spear jabbed towards his head.

"I noticed!" Raph responded, narrowly avoiding an attempt to tangle his sai in the weapon's chain. "Think you can handle him yourself, or do you need me to hold your hand?"

"Hah!" Mikey scoffed, turning just in time for the spearhead to break on his shell. "I bet I finish mine before you finish yours!"

Raph gritted his teeth and crouched down. Time to focus. The Blue Lotus ninja opposite him was moving like a panther, all coiled muscle and staring eyes. With a flick of his wrist, he sent one nunchuck spinning, and beckoned Raph closer with the other one.

"You wanna dance, chucklehead?" Raph sneered, raising his sai. "Let's dance, then!"

But the other ninja remained at a distance, watching him warily. It took Raph a moment to realize what was going on — the guy was waiting for him to make the first move to strike. Well, Raph thought, who was he to disappoint the chump. He grinned, spun one of his sai and sent it flying towards his enemy's head.

The ninja dodged at the last second, and the sai's tip buried itself in the concrete wall in a halo of cracks. He stared at it for a moment before pulling it loose and flinging it back the way it had come.

"Thanks for returnin' that," Raph said, catching it out of the air as he leaped towards his enemy.

They clashed like a pair of cars crashing into each other, and a loud clang rang out as Raph fell back against the boiler, his shell smashing against the tarnished metal. Bracing against it, he kicked at the ninja's stomach, sending him tumbling headfirst into a pile of crumbled cinder blocks and tattered insulation. One of the nunchaku was sent flying through the air, and nearly cracked into Raph's head as he dodged it.

He crouched nearby, every nerve blazing as he waited for his opponent to rise again. But nothing happened. Raph crept a little closer, the tips of his sai pointed at his enemy, and peered down at the ninja's head. His eyes were closed, and his body was limp.

"Knocked him out cold," Raph muttered.

"Watch out, Raph!" Mikey's voice suddenly roared behind him.

Without looking, he felt the brush of air as someone came closer. His sai swooped up and caught the headless spear as the remaining ninja leaped toward him, whirling it like a bo staff with nimble hands. Mikey was only a few steps behind him, nunchaku coiling around the broken spear and yanking its splintered end away from Raph's head.

"Thanks, Mikey," Raph said with a grin. "But you still lose the bet."

"Best two out of three?" Mikey said.

The two of them struck in perfect unison, with Mikey cracking one of his nunchaku into the enemy ninja's head as Raph punched the enemy in the stomach, their combined force sending the ninja flying to where his compatriot was lying. The broken spear was sent clattering to the ground.

Once again Raphael waited for their enemy to rise and attack again, but nothing happened — just the faint breathing of the two unconscious ninja, and the hard pants of the two Turtles as they tried to recover from the fight.

"That was way harder than fighting the Foot," Mikey said uncertainly.

"Tell me about it," Raph said. "Go up against a dozen of these guys, and we're probably sunk."

They had fought the Blue Lotus ninja outside the building, but that had been chaos — this had been two one-on-one fights, ninja against ninja. And as pleased as Raphael was by his win, he also knew that he likely wouldn't have done as well if he had been going up against more than one foe. They were skilled, that much he could tell.

The question now was what they could do — the Blue Lotus was apparently still patrolling through the building, even in places that had supposedly already been checked. That meant nowhere was safe. They would need a new strategy to keep themselves unseen as they moved around the building…

He dipped his sai down, hooking one fallen ninja's uniform on the tip.

"Mikey, start stripping them," he said, a smile crossing his face.


	31. Chapter 31

Metal biting into his ankles and his wrists. A bright light somewhere above him. Murmuring voices coming from the darkness. And someone was probing his side with very cold, pointed fingers.

Deja vu washed over Leo as he awoke, and instinctively stiffened against the restraints. He was back — back on the gurney, back in the tight cuffs that more or less kept him from moving his arms and legs. Wonderful. He wondered how he had gotten away from them the first time, and whether it would work again…

"410-B is awake and appears fully conscious," a somewhat bored-sounding voice said.

A woman with messily-knotted hair was looming over him, her glasses about to slip off the tip of her nose. Leo drew back from her as far as he was able, especially since she was the one prodding him with her fingertips. He recognized that face vaguely — he had probably seen it during his previous stay in the laboratory.

Then, with no fanfare, the woman brandished a needle at the end of a long plastic tube, and jammed it into a vein in his arm. Leo winced, but was too tightly restrained to move as his deep red blood flowed down the tube and into a waiting vial. The woman popped the vial out and replaced it with an empty one; once it had been filled, she extracted the needle from his skin.

"Now there, that didn't hurt so much," she said, as if speaking to a child.

"Where's my brother?" Leo demanded.

She acted as though she hadn't heard him. "Now if you cooperate, this won't take very long and we'll have you back out there in no time."

That would have been more reassuring if he wasn't sure that she meant either the arena or the room where he had been chained before. Or perhaps something even worse — after all, he still didn't know where Don was. Maybe they were planning to deposit them in the same place — at least until they found something new to torture them with.

Then he heard a cry from somewhere nearby.

Don.

He stiffened against the restraints, the gurney rattling as he tore at the cuffs. He could feel the metal starting to bend slightly as he strained against it, but not enough to escape. Not yet. He curled his legs inward, and felt the gurney starting to bend with it. He heard Don's voice fade away, sending him into another frenzy.

The woman whirled around, and her pleasantly bland expression was suddenly rather stiff. "I see you're going to make things difficult for yourself," she said reprovingly, her eyes glinting. "Well, I'm afraid we can't allow that."

"What are you doing to him?" Leo shouted.

She responded by raising a hypodermic filled with a clear liquid, and jabbing it into his arm, rather less gently this time. Leo gritted his teeth, bracing himself for another crash into unconsciousness. But instead, a trickling sensation of warmth and limpness crept through his arm, spreading to his chest as he continued trying to struggle.

"Just a little something to relax your muscles for a while," the woman said in an artificially soothing voice. She patted Leonardo on the throat as she circled around him, her face settling back into a pleasant expression. "Now, you're not going to cause any more trouble, are you? Of course not. You were so well-behaved the first time we had you."

Leo stared at her balefully. He could feel that warmth creeping through his blood, and in its wake his muscles felt… weak, limp. He could still move within the confines of the cuffs, but the power behind his movements had been drained away. He wouldn't be able to put up any kind of significant struggle until the drug wore off — and he wasn't sure he had that kind of time.

"Subject required medical intervention to avoid injuring self in escape attempt," she informed the darkness over her shoulder. "The attempt was unsuccessful."

"Where is my brother?" Leo snapped.

"Subject shows injuries not present before escape, including a fractured rib in the process of healing." Her hands prodded his side, and Leo winced at the lightning bolt of pain that lanced through him. "Secondary blood samples obtained. Should I proceed with a second collection of skin samples as well?"

"That won't be necessary," the voice said from above her. "I think we have enough of 410-B in our laboratories to tide us over for awhile. Certainly enough for extensive gene analysis."

Leo grimaced. Not only did he have to find Don and escape from this place, but he had to find those vials of blood and destroy them… along with whatever they had taken from Don. And that didn't even include trying to find Raph and Mikey, who might be somewhere in the building. He had no idea where to even start searching for them, or even whether they were in the same building at all.

Suddenly he heard doors opening somewhere in the dark, and the sound of footsteps. Footsteps, and wheels squeaking. He stiffened, listening carefully as the walking feet and the wheels came closer… closer…

Then he heard a faint moan. Don.

"411-A isn't needed just yet," the woman said, sounding irritated.

"We have confirmation of the other two specimens being in the building," a deep male voice said. "For security reasons, it's necessary to keep both 410-B and 411-A in the same space, until the other specimens have been captured and restrained. This is only temporary."

The woman pressed her lips together. "Very well. But the specimens should be separated as soon as possible, unless one of the tests for collaboration or team sentiment is required."

The footsteps retreated, and the doors opened and closed again. The woman frowned after whoever it had been, and walked off swiftly towards an unseen location in the dark.

Leo craned his neck, peering off to the side. He could see the glint of another gurney, and a green shape lying on it. Don was moving slightly, and Leo heard him utter another muffled groan.

"Donnie," Leo whispered.

"Leo?"

"Are you all right?"

"Define ' all right,'" Donnie said faintly. "They've been running tests on me — taking skin scrapings, blood samples — they ran an electrical current through me to see how much I could endure — injected me with some things I can't identify, but they hurt a lot…" He trailed off. "I'm still suffering the effects of the Dusk."

"I know, Don," Leo said. "They did those things to me too."

"I suppose they want repeatable results," Don said, with an air of reluctance, as if he didn't want to credit the Spartan scientists with that much scientific integrity. "Confirming that what's the case for you is also the case for me, physically speaking. Which means they'll do the same thing to Mikey and Raph if they capture them…"

"We just have to get out of here before they can," Leo whispered.

"I'm open to suggestions," Don said. "I can't even move."

"Neither can I." Not just because of the cuffs, but because of the injection that woman had given him.

"Do you have any ideas?"

Leo glanced down at the side of the gurney. His thrashing hadn't been without its effects — one of the left-side cuffs had wrenched halfway off of the gurney, a tear visible in the metal when he moved his hand. He gently placed his fingers around it, keeping it invisible. He wouldn't be able to take advantage of it for awhile — his muscles still felt weak and flaccid — but the weakness was there, and once he had recovered he would be able to free one of his hands.

And he could feel something else — the right rail on the gurney was loose. Not hugely, but it was rattling as he moved his arm and leg. Maybe he could loosen it further…

"A few," he said, letting his head fall back. He didn't want to say what he had planned, just in case the woman was listening.

Then he heard something in the distance — a loud, grating, blaring sound that recurred every few seconds. It was muffled in the room, but he had the feeling it was painfully loud out in the halls. The woman with the glasses walked by, a mildly puzzled expression on her face shifting into annoyance with every blare of the alarm.

"What's that?" Don said a little blearily.

"An alarm," Leo said, craning his neck to look in the direction of the closed doors. "I have the feeling Raph and Mikey have been up to something."


	32. Chapter 32

"I hate wearin' clothes," Raph announced to no one in particular.

He didn't know how humans managed to get anything done with clothing on. When not impersonating humans, the Turtles tended to walk around more or less nude, except for pads on their elbows and knees, a mask and a belt. It allowed for freedom of movement and easier awareness of their surroundings. Besides, Raphael thought to himself, it was much more comfortable to not have cloth restricting his movements and covering his skin.

And he especially didn't like donning clothing that covered almost every inch of his body. It was better than the alternative — being seen and captured by the Blue Lotus — but it still made him itch and squirm. Not to mention it wasn't easy to stretch the clothes over his stocky limbs and his shell. Hopefully people who saw him wouldn't notice the curve on his back.

"So how do I look?" Mikey said, striking a pose. "It's part of the new ninja spring collection."

"You look like a giant turtle in a unitard," Raph sniped, pulling the head-covering mask over his face. Only a thin line of green skin around his eyes could be seen now; he'd have to avoid making eye contact with people, just in case they noticed it. Well, there were also his hands — he couldn't fit them into gloves meant for humans, so he had to simply pull the sleeves over as much of his hands as he could, and hope nobody looked.

He glanced down at the two ninja they had subdued — the humans were stripped almost naked, tied tightly and tucked out of sight behind the boiler. Fortunately they were also unconscious, and hopefully would remain that way for awhile — at least until Raph and Mikey could figure out where Leo and Don were. If the Blue Lotus figured out that the two Turtles were in disguise, all they'd have to do was demand that all their ninja unmask.

"All right, let's get outta here," Raph said as Mikey pulled on his own mask.

They scuttled up the stairwell, arriving on the ground floor a few minutes later. They emerged into a perfectly ordinary-looking lobby, with uncomfortable-looking couches and a thin gray carpet. Large shining windows looked out into the night, reflecting the two Turtles as they stepped through the door.

"Are you lost?" a nasal voice asked.

Raph's heart jumped into his throat before he remembered he was dressed as one of the Blue Lotus. He turned slightly towards the voice, finding a rather bored-looking secretary sitting behind a large built-in desk.

"Are you lost?" she repeated, sounding annoyed.

He shook his head.

"Well, I don't know what you're doin' here," she said sharply. "The search is moving on towards the upper levels of the building. Get movin'."

Raph seized Mikey's arm and dragged him towards the elevator, before his brother could say something that would blow their cover. He could feel the woman's hostile eyes watching him go, and just before the doors closed, he heard her voice mutter, "Stinkin' ninjas."

"Where are we going now?" Mikey asked.

"Up, I guess."

Raph reached out to press the button for the second floor, but his eyes strayed down to the bottom of the control panel. There were three extra buttons there — B1, B2 and B3 — under the ground floor level. He hesitated, then pushed the B2 button. Nothing happened. He pressed B3. Nothing happened. He pressed it harder, but the elevator remained stubbornly still.

Mikey pointed at a card swiping slot next to the line of buttons. "I think we need someone with a security card," he said.

"Shell," Raph muttered. If Donnie were there, he could probably override the security locks and get them down to the lower levels in just a few minutes. All Raph knew how to do was break it.

Suddenly the elevator began to move, and for a moment Raph hoped that it had just been delayed a little. Then he realized that it was moving upwards rather than down, and his heart sank. The digital readout above them showed that they were heading towards the sixth floor.

As the doors opened, they heard a mumbling voice coming from outside. "… need further analysis of the genetic abnormalities, could spend months working on this but no, they want it in two weeks, I barely sleep already and they want more, more, more…" muttered the pudgy, bearded man in a white lab coat as he stepped inside, and touched the button for the twelfth floor.

But what caught Raph's eye was the card dangling from a lanyard around the man's neck. He could see a magnetic strip and the words "security clearance" printed on the front of it. He glanced over at Mikey, and made a few gestures at the man's neck.

"… completely unprecedented and unknown, so of course they expect results immediately, they can't possibly wait for the job to be done _right…"_ the man mumbled.

As the elevator began to slow, Raph's hand darted up with his sai, and neatly cut the lanyard from behind. As the man's slightly glassy eyes looked towards the opening doors, Mikey's hand slipped out and stealthily snatched the badge from the man's chest, so lightly and smoothly that he never felt it being lifted. Raph grinned under the mask, glad that something was going right for a change.

"… haven't been home in almost three days, need some more coffee…" the man mumbled as he shuffled out, and the doors shut behind him.

"Nice hands, Mikey," Raph said with a grin.

"You should see me playing poker," Mikey responded, holding up the card.

He swiped the card as Raph pushed the B3 button, and the elevator began to whir as it descended down into the depths of the building. Raph felt his heart speeding up as the elevator settled to the sub-basement levels, and his hands tightened on his sai as he waited to see what was waiting on the other side. The woman had said that the search was going to the upper levels of the building, but that hadn't kept those two Blue Lotus ninja from heading down into the boiler room. Someone might still be down here.

The doors opened into a wide hallway with dim golden lights and a deep plush carpet. No one seemed to be around. Raph glanced up and down the hall before he and Mikey scuttled out, seeing a few ordinary doors in the walls around them. But what really caught his eye were the massive steel doors at the end of the hall, wider and thicker than any of the others, as if to keep something large in or out.

"I don't really wanna know what those are there for," Mikey said.

"Too bad. We're goin' in anyway," Raph grunted. He swiped the card again beside the steel doors, heard a clunking inside them as something unlocked, and watched as they slowly swung inward.

On the other side was a massive arena — far larger than Raph would have guessed would fit in something just labelled as a basement — an ovoid expanse sunken down below them. It was full of pale golden sand under the bright lights that shone from overhead. High walls rose on every side of it — high enough that jumping out would be tricky — and Raph could see cracks and fissures broken into its surface.

"What the shell?" Mikey murmured.

"I guess we found where Leo was fightin'," Raph muttered. "Now let's see if him and Don are here."

And then they heard it — a low, dull roar coming from the arena.


	33. Chapter 33

"What the shell was that?" Mikey whispered.

Raph gritted his teeth and went straight through the doors, his mind instantly filled with visions of Leo and Don being chased by some… _thing_ in that arena. His hands slipped down to his belt and pulled his sai free, and he tensed as he reached the edge of the arena, ready to leap down and attack whatever was down there.

"Raph!" Mikey's hand shot out and grabbed the edge of his shell, pulling him back.

His steps faltered as he looked down, seeing the tiny figures of humans in the arena below him, dressed in what looked like gray hazmat suits. Most of them seemed to be clustered around the parts of the wall that had been damaged, pointing at them and talking amongst themselves. Fortunately, none of them seemed to have noticed Raph and Mikey.

Then the roar came again — a low, rattling sound from somewhere down below them. It made Raph's bones shiver. His eyes roamed down to a large open doorway in the arena walls, with nothing but blackness on the other side. Hazmat-suited humans were roaming freely in and out of it, carrying equipment with them as they went, their covered faces glancing back as another roar echoed through the arena.

"I think it's coming from down in the next level's basement," Mikey said.

"Yeah, and it's comin' out that door," Raph responded. "Come on, Mikey."

He moved swiftly along the edge of the arena, a narrow pathway that wound around the top of the walls, half hidden by them. It was at times like this that he was devoutly grateful for the years Master Splinter had dedicated to teaching them how to keep to the shadows. Which wasn't particularly hard in this all — all the light seemed to be focused on the arena, leaving the outer parts of the room pitch-black.

"Just a couple of totally not suspicious ninja," Mikey muttered behind him. "Don't notice us."

"Shut up, Mikey," Raph responded.

Their silent footsteps took them over the heads of the humans, and at any moment Raph expected them to look up and see two ninja doing their best not to be seen. He was pretty sure none of the Blue Lotus were in this area right now — if ever — and there would be questions if they were caught. But he bent low and kept moving, silent and shadowy as ever.

It was so dark around the edge of the arena that he almost didn't notice the door until he stumbled across it. This one was smaller — barely big enough for two people to pass through — and made of riveted steel, as if they were heading down into a battleship. It didn't have any visible handles or knobs, but Raph's wandering hands came across a familiar slot in the wall.

"Mikey, gimme the card," he whispered.

As he inserted the card, a green light flashed over the slot, and something thunked deep inside the door. Raph grimaced, and glanced down at the people below him, but none of them seemed to have heard it. The door slowly eased open with a hollow metallic sound, and Raph immediately squeezed himself inside, hearing Mikey slipping just behind him.

A weak light blinked on over his head, illuminating a small staircase slanting off to the side. The two Turtles slipped down the stairs, listening carefully for any footsteps that weren't their own.

Instead, they heard a deep, guttural growl from somewhere ahead.

Raph reached for his sai again, and he felt Mikey shift behind him to grasp his nunchaku. Silently they moved forward again, towards a faint light shining under yet another door at the bottom of the stairs. Raph just hoped that there was nobody down there when they emerged from the staircase — and that whatever was growling and roaring was caged up instead of roaming free.

He flinched as the door swung open, the bright lights burning his eyes. But as his vision cleared, he found himself staring at a massive cage that rose to the vaulted ceiling, with bars almost as thick as his arm. On the other side was a mutant of some kind — a mass of scales and scuttling limbs, burning eyes and a long sinuous head. It was easily the size of the Battle Shell, meaning it was not something Raph wanted to meet in person. It slithered along the cell bars, eyeing him.

"That's a messed-up zoo," Mikey muttered.

Raph slowly turned through the room, his eyes taking in the other cages spread throughout it. More creatures were locked in each one, and he got glimpses of giant, fast-moving shapes in each one, of glittering eyes and gleaming chitinous shells, of coarse fur and long spidery limbs, heavy rocklike bodies and gleaming fangs. None of them were like anything he had ever seen before — nothing natural, anyway.

"Looks like Spartan's up to something more messed up than catching Turtles," he muttered.

His eyes moved to the sign attached to each cage — they had numbers and letters on them, like 28-D or 69-Y. He had no idea what those meant, but he had the uneasy feeling that if he looked far enough in this building, he might stumble across a pair of captive Turtles with numbers and letters attached to them.

"Think Leo and Don are in here?" Mikey said.

Raph suspected not, since none of the creatures in here seemed to be smaller than a car, but it was still worth checking. He roamed from cage to cage — there were a few dozen of them, each one with a door twice as tall as Raph was — peering inside for some sign of his brothers. His stomach clenched as one of the creatures bared its yellow fangs at him and screeched. If one of these monsters had done anything to Leo or Don…

As he reached the end of the room, he found that a hallway turned to the left, dark enough that he could see little except a distant square of light at the end. Voices floated down from the end of the hallway, growing louder as Raph roamed closer, and he strained to hear them.

"—did more damage to the arena than the last time."

"And I heard they were going to send the other one — the new one —down here to fight some of those things on his own, see what he can do."

"Ugh. As soon as we fix the place, they start breaking it again."

Raph's eyes narrowed. Those must be the people in hazmat suits — it was at the right level and place for the doorway into the arena. He crept a little closer, listening carefully.

"And what about those ninja?"

"Those are supposed to be next — just have a few of them in the arena with the specimens and see who beats who. But you didn't hear it from me. We're not supposed to know what's going on."

It sounded like Leo and Don weren't there. Raph felt both a spurt of relief that his brothers apparently hadn't been hurt by the monsters, and a grim sort of anger that they were still being held captive and used as test subjects. For a moment he considered simply marching out there and grabbing a few of the hazmat workers, and demanding to be taken to his brothers.

But then another idea crept into his head. Something much better. Something that would flush out the entire building if he put it into action, and would cause plenty of trouble for Spartan and the Blue Lotus. He and Mikey could look for Don and Leo without having to worry about being hunted, because everyone else would be worked up about something else.

He was grinning by the time he made it back to the cages, and found Mikey diddling with one of the electronic locks.

"Leo and Don aren't anywhere in here. So what now?" Mikey asked.

Raph brandished a sai, and plunged it into the lock. Sparks and arcs of electricity danced over the buttons and screen. "Now we cause some trouble."


End file.
